Once More
by Conscience15
Summary: After years of fighting in the War, Harry realizes that Voldemort has won. In a desperate gamble for one more chance, he goes back in time to try to get things right. He soon finds himself training in the Auror Academy with more than one familiar face. AU
1. Introduction

**Summary: **After years of fighting in the War, Harry realizes that Voldemort has won. In a desperate gamble for one more chance, he goes back in time to try to get things right. He soon finds himself training in the Auror Academy with more than one familiar face. AU, with his past deviating from cannon a little bit in the fifth book, a little bit more in the sixth book and then in a major way for the seventh book. Some elements form those stories will be kept and brought into play later in this fic.

**AN: **Either way, this is just an idea I've been throwing around, enjoy.

**Disclaimer: **No Harry Potter Series character, item, plot device, etc. belongs to me; they belong to JKR, who is not to be confused with JFK.

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"Welcome Trainees," a loud voice boomed; every green recruit there could hear it, even without the aid of a charm, "My name is Alastor Moody. I will be training you lot to become successful Aurors. Only those capable of passing my training will be allowed to go on. Don't beg if you fail. If you fail there is a reason for it, that reason is that you would not survive field work. Look to the left of you and look to the right and say goodbye to one of them; of the one hundred trainees here today only about fifty will pass basic training which will cover the next three months." The girl to the left snidely bid him adieu, he didn't respond, didn't even look at her.

He stood stock still and let his dark eyes follow Alastor back and forth across the room while his face remained forward and impassive. Moody began to weave in between the four equal rows, correcting stance here and outfit there. He was in the last row, on the far corner. One recruit, a sandy haired boy, was told that for every word he continued to whisper to his friend represented how the chance of him making it through training was falling further and further; the boy blushed and mumbled an apology. Moody mocked him a bit for being a child; here they were to become Men and Woman. _We're all boys and girls though,_ he thought, most of the people who died in the war were. Just small kids dressed up in army green with cork riffles. The nightmares followed him, it was why he was late, why he was in the back row in the back corner- the nightmare of the final battle had dogged him through the beginning of the night and in his exhaustion he had slept through his alarm, late on the first day and no doubt Mad-Eye noticed.

Moody reached him last. "And what's your name, boy?"

"Mark Evans, sir," he replied, his voice was soft but it carried.

"Couldn't be bothered to make it on time today, recruit? Spending too much time on your hair was your problem," Moody put in snidely, he didn't rise to the bait but continued to stare ahead while his teacher surveyed his hair, it was bottle green and spiky. "We need dependable people in the Auror department. You realize people die for simple mistakes such as these, do you not?" Moody's voice carried too.

It was probably a rhetorical question, most of it was. It was to make the cry babies go home early, keep the tough people who knew how to play grown-up, who knew they did not have their parents anymore to come to their rescue, who knew their mistakes rested in their small, pudgy hands. The rest would go home, they were the lucky ones. He answered the question anyways, pulling his eyes from the front of the room to meet Alastor's "Yes, I know." Moody looked annoyed for a moment, his normal eye staring into Mark's black ones while his magical eye swirled wildly. Other recruits he would drive for mistakes such as these, especially early on when he needed to make an impression. But there was something about Mark Evans that lead Moody to simply give an irritated _humph_, before turning sharply on his heel and heading back for the front of the room. Ah well, he could always kill the little blighter later if he caused any more problems.

"Helping me here for at least the first part of your training will be Kingsley Shaklebolt-" Kingsley stepped in from the other room and went to stand by Moody. He looked much like Mark had remembered him, tall, black and bald with a stocky frame, but there were fewer lines around his face. Moody looked younger too, for that matter, a little less scared with a little more nose than he had had the first time he had met him, –"and Alice Longbottom." She walked confidently out onto the floor, holding herself much like her son had begun to do once he had gained more confidence in himself. She looked a bit like him too; same height with a little plumpness that Mark doubted would ever go away, same round face and kind eyes too. Mark figured he would like her; maybe he could even get her to talk about James and Lily- doubtful, he couldn't give away too much.

There were scattered claps welcoming the new teachers in. _Happy Birthday, Neville, a bit early but what can you do,_ Mark thought to himself. The key to bringing the Longbottoms back to their right mind shouldn't have been found for another six years, but Mark had figured that the Longbottoms deserved a bit of happiness, before it all went to hell. 'Sides, it made him feel better about the fact that there was nothing he could do for the other himself who would still live in a cupboard under the stairs for two more weeks. So an anonymous tip was sent to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies three months prior and both Frank and Alice had been released shortly after. He had been a bit perturbed to learn that Alice had considered taking the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts (which just seemed like she was asking for it) for a bit and was pleased when she decided that teaching green recruits would be a better job.

Seven more Junior Aurors were introduced as well, though it was explained that they would cycle out every week, with one exception. Mark got the impression that this was sort of considered the Bitch Shift for most of the lot, and that all of them would prefer to be elsewhere, even if elsewhere meant filing paper work.

"We'll start this week off with some basic physical training, because we won't be able to even begin working on your pathetic magical capabilities if you still have that baby fat slowing you down," Alastor was booming again. "Form a line by that booth and we'll hand out your group assignments." The effect was instantaneous. Everyone began jockeying for the best spot in line, some even cutting up ahead with their buddies, much like teenagers at a lunch line. Mark hung back, he wasn't in the mood to deal with these people, he wouldn't even be here in the first place but he had heard the Moody and Shaklebolt were doing this years training program and he could use the experience, he would need it, besides, he wasn't quite sure what else there was that he should do.

The system for dividing the class into teams consisted of handing out different colored shirts randomly; there were ten colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, pink, white, black and brown—and there were ten people in each of them. The three Senior Officers tried to split up friends as much as possible, they needed competitors to push each other, not cliques to coddle. Alastor saved him a green shirt and threw it at him, calling him a pretty boy and saying that it would go nicely with his hair. Mark simply nodded at him. All the recruits took off the shirts they were wearing, girls included (as they were all wearing sports bras anyways it wasn't such a big deal), and switch it out with the ones they had just received. The shirts they removed were thrown into a pile in the corner to be retrieved before they left at the end of the day.

All of the Aurors took a group and grabbed a Portkey which transported them to separate training grounds. Moody stuck with Mark and the sandy haired boy, who was also in the Green Group, and held an old cup out for all of them to grab. Evans wished three things simultaneously, that it wasn't a Portkey, that it wasn't with Moody and that it wasn't a cup, all of which resulted in one bad memory. "Touch the damn cup, Boy," Moody growled, and Mark reluctantly touched the pad of one finger the handle. There was a sharp pull from behind his navel and he found himself swirling around and wishing one final thing- that he had gotten a hang of landing on his feet with these damn things.

By the time the team broke up to return to the mess hall for lunch, Mark was in a foul mood. He grabbed a tray and loaded it up with a thick soup, a roll of bread and a banana before making his way over to an unoccupied corner. He sat down and began to swish his bread in his soup and zone out. He didn't know what he was doing back here. It hurt, to see all those faces he had lost and to look out in a world filled with hope and only find opportunities for despair. He needed to train, he knew that much, but what he was planning to do after that he was unsure. He had already changed the time line up, what with bringing Frank and Alice. Pettigrew needed to be captured as well, it would be best to do that at the Kings Cross Station he figured. But beyond that, Mark hadn't had much of a plan, it wasn't his strong suit and it certainly wasn't what he had in mind when he had grabbed a hold of Hermione's mutated a time turner to bring him back here. Something needed to change though, he couldn't let it happen the same way it had the first time.

"Wotcher," a hand shook his shoulder as a voice sounded from in front of him, he looked up startled. "Err, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you or anything but you had been staring at your soup for a good fifteen minutes and we were beginning to get worried about you."

"Oh," Mark responded, a little lost for a moment or two. The piece of bread had all but disintegrated in his hands, with bits still floating like islands in his soup. She was in the Pink Group, which was fitting for her, three others wearing pink shirts sat around. She had managed to make friends, he noted, suddenly feeling a little bit alienated and alone, but of course she made friends, she was hard to dislike. "I'm sorry, I'm Mark." He wiped a hand on his trousers and reached around to shake her hand. She smiled at him.

"Name's Tonks. This here is Andrew, Alex and Sarah," she pointed to the three other people around her, who each nodded in turn. Mark didn't know the other three, but Tonks he remembered vividly. She looked very much the same as she did when they met for the first time just before his fifth year; she looked very much the same as she did when she died two years later too. Her hair was still short and spiky, and vividly colored the same pink as her shirt, her face was pale and heart shaped and she had a smile on her face. "First days tough, isn't it, I'm betting at least one won't come back for day two."

"Probably not," he agreed, thinking of a few people he wished were amongst that list. She then rambled off a few other questions, which he answered in one or two word sentences. An awkward silence fell when she had exhausted all the basic chit-chatty subjects.

"I like your hair," she bubbled nervously.

Mark began to move his hand up to flatten his fringe over his forehead before he remembered that he no longer had a fringe. He grazed his fingers over the spikes instead. "Yeah, I think Moody likes it too." Tonks cracked a smile at that.

"Thank Merlin; I was beginning to think you didn't have a personality." The bell ending lunch was called shortly after and the teams went back to their leaders for more training.

By the time he had got back to his flat just outside of Diagon Alley, Mark was about ready to pass out. Instead he adjusted the taps in the bathroom and leaned his forehead against the tiled wall as he stood under the spray. He needed to start planning, figuring out the key events that could undue Voldemort. First off though, he needed to go shopping; he had salvaged some stuff from before and managed to bring that to the past as well, but he couldn't live out this time line with just a futon as the only furniture in a two bedroom apartment.

He washed his hair quickly, jumped out of the shower and threw on some jeans and a gray hoodie because he didn't have any other clean shirts, and tied up his faded black converses. He pocketed some cash that he had left over form when he was on the run and went down the stairs and into muggle London. Within a few hours he had worked his way through all but a hundred quid of the cash but had bought a comfortable wardrobe, that actually fit him (consisting mostly of jeans, sweats, football shorts, basic t-shirts, and, of course, boxers and socks). Buying partially from IKEA and partially from a thrift store he managed to afford a bed and a dresser (for his bedroom), a small coach and coffee table (for his living room), and a desk, chair and bookshelf (for his second bedroom turned study) and groceries. He'd still have to sleep on the futon on the floor tonight though, most of the stuff wouldn't arrive until the next day as he wasn't about to carry anything heavy to his apartment the day after training under Moody.

He then trekked back to his apartment again and began to put away his foodstuff in the plywood cupboards. Then he pulled out necessary ingredients for making pasta with a meat sauce. He began to hum softly as he prepared the meal and then, with a conspiratorial look around to make sure no one else was around—of course no one was—broke out into full fledged song. His untrained voice faltered a bit but gained strength as it carried its way through certain pop songs he had heard over the years. He didn't have the memory needed to make up his own songs and tunes, but the ones he had heard he remembered well enough, and he repeated them like a mockingbird. He thought about what he knew of his future and his past and decided that the best thing he could do was to take it all one day at a time.

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**AN: **Well, so much for the intro. This is much shorter than any of the real chapters will be, at about half the length. Please leave some suggestions for where it could go, constructive criticism is also more than welcome, or just feel free to leave a review. Also, **please note** that updates about new chapters will be posted on my profile page so check that out if you're wondering when things are going to be updated. 


	2. Chapter 1

**AN**: Hey all, here's the next chapter. Thanks for the reviews and everything. And I know that the information on the background and stuff is a little spotty right now but I plan to slowly connect the dots through _Mark's_ thoughts and dialogue. Hints about how everything went down in his past will be dropped randomly, sometimes in large chunks and sometimes in smaller chunks so be on the look out. Also, as per request, I'm detailing a day of training in this chapter.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own JKR's characters, plot ideas, items, ideas, etc.

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"You're here early," a female voice intoned from behind him, "Trying to average this time out with yesterday?" Mark ignored the question and continued pushing the weights up and letting them down, up down, up down, there was a rhythm there and that made sense. He liked it when things made sense, it helped to balance out things that were confusing, that didn't follow logic, like killing thousands without remorse and without reason.

He had another nightmare that night, and woke up at 4:05 in a cold sweat. He took scalding hot shower, trying to wash the memories form the battles away like the clammy perspiration. It hadn't worked. Trying to fall back asleep hadn't worked either and his apartment was too bare and empty to stay there until training started. He needed to do something, which is how he ended up at the Auror's gym at 4:30 in the morning.

"Not talkative today either, eh? You know this room is only supposed to be for Aurors, right, not trainees," Alice paused again and waited for Mark to respond. She had been watching the boy bench pressing for a good five minutes. There was a certain desperation in his movements that couldn't be explained. He continued to pretend to be alone in the room and she slowly made her way over. "Look, if you're going to be here in a restricted area, an hour before you're supposed to be here and an hour before I'm supposed to have to deal with you, interfering with my peaceful warm-up then at least bench this right."

"I'm doing it fine," Mark ground out, but he put the bar back on the rack anyways with a dull clang.

"Oh, so it does speak," she smiled, and then went behind him in spotting position, "Here pick it up again, there we go. No you're problem is that you're dropping it too quickly, slow it down, it's not a race. Then pick it up slowly too. If you do it too fast you're missing out on a good quarter of the work out. Ok, hold on, reposition you're hands a little closer together. That's good. Ok, show me a few reps." Mark softly let the bar down and softly pushed it back up a few times. _Neville's lucky to have her,_ he thought, _lucky to have a grandma who took him in the first place too, lucky to have parents now, and lucky to not be marked._ Mark racked the bar again and placed his hands over his eyes and face, they smelled like metal. He took in a few shuddering breaths and pulled the tears back inside.

"How long have you been here, Evans?" the pads on the bench dipped a bit as she went around and sat on the end.

Mark put off answering until he was sure he could trust his voice, "Depends what time it is now."

"6:10" she spoke softly.

"An hour and some."

"And when was the last time you got a good night rest?"

His laugh was higher than normal, in the sort of manic way that happens when you really want to cry but can't, so you laugh to get rid of all the feelings, "Years."

Alice stood up again and pulled at his shoulder until he moved into a sitting position. She sat down next to him and pulled him into a hug. It was a bold move in this sort of situation. "Were you there, when they came?"

He stiffened, "When who came?"

"The death eaters. I've read your file, all of the files really but yours I remember. It says you were orphaned, during the War. The way you carry yourself and the way you're so determined sort of cements it. I've been through it too; you can recognize other survivors sometimes."

There was a pause again and Alice worried that she had pushed him too far. "Yeah. I was there, for all of it," _And I killed them, everyone who was dumb enough to associate with me and countless others, it was my fault, _he added silently in his head. They sat like that for a few more minutes and then she pulled him up and brought him to the mess hall. There were a few other aurors and trainees loitering around, most looking like they had just pulled a night shift and were on the verge of passing out. But for the most part it was empty. They ate breakfast in a comfortable silence.

Alice let Mark into the Main Training Room a few minutes early, which he appreciated on one hand because today he wasn't late, but on the other hand he was left to stand around awkwardly for a few minutes while she went over to talk with Shaklebolt, Moody and the seven junior aurors. However, it wasn't long before a few other trainees began to find their way into the MTR. A couple of them with green shirts on hailed Mark by his name and he uncomfortably realized he did not know theirs. Today he would need to work on that. Two boys from the Green Group loped over. They were twins, and it was mostly that which lead Mark to be instantly reminded of Fred and George.

"Hey mate," they said in unison.

Mark gave them a greeting in return.

"Do you think we'll have ol' Mad-Eye again?" one of them questioned.

"Yeah, I'm hoping we get that pretty little thing over there," the other added and both nodded in the direction of a young redhead auror. She reminded Mark of Ginny and his stomach began to churn. _She'd only be ten now_, he reminded himself sternly, _ten and awkward and begging to go to Hogwarts a year early. Not to mention she'd be in love with the Boy-Who-Lived, not with Harry Potter, but with his story. Then she would go to Hogwarts, and what would she find? Pain mostly and love with me, the idiot who brought it all to her. Fucking hero worship, fucking fate. She deserved a better than the life she got._

"Moody is a good teacher though, one of the best," He responded, trying to drag his mind away from his fiancée. The twins looked at him like he had just grown an extra head. To them Moody was a tyrant, plain and simple.

"You really are bonkers, aren't you?" the boy on the left asked incredulously. Mark shot that twin a dark look which the other one picked up and began to glance around nervously. A girl caught his eye.

"Hey, Kane, I think I see that babe from the orange group we talked to yesterday," the second steered them away from the topic.

"Yeah, that is her. Let's go say 'hi.'" The two boys loped off again and Mark was left standing on his own. He glanced around feeling like a small boy again back when Dudley wouldn't let anyone else be friends with him. Alice caught his eyes and gave him a worried look and he pretended to retie his shoelaces to avoid her glance. Someone else's feet found their way into his field of vision, he hoped they weren't Alice's; he was already ostracized enough without being her pet, even if she was nice. Moody would really dislike him then, he couldn't see him appreciating a suck up.

"Wotcher Evans." He looked up into Tonk's eyes, sapphire today.

"Wotcher Tonks." She smiled at him, and offered a hand to help him up.

"Glad you're back for the second day. Part of me was worried you wouldn't be,"-she paused and looked a little embarrassed before adding on,-"no offence." Ouch, that was a low blow to his manhood. Mark raised his eyebrow at her for this and she blushed a little deeper.

"Well, I didn't come all this way to give up now. Glad you're back as well. I need to know somebody's name around here." Tonks smiled. There were more words in that single answer than there were in the total of the responses he had given her yesterday. Maybe he wasn't a complete loss after all. That was good, because Tonks couldn't help but be drawn to him. She saw how he tried to be tough but more often than not he just looked alone, though she doubted Mark realized this.

Tonks was about to respond but Moody's booming voice broke them all up into different teams again and he and she parted ways. Moody sent all the other colors off to their respective leaders, which Mark noticed were the same as yesterday, and then called the remaining group, his group, up to the front. He held out the cup to them again and they all swirled away to the training grounds, Mark ending up on the floor once more.

"Softer legs pretty boy. We can't have you down on your arse all the time. You can't start of on a portkey with your knees locked, give them some bend and put one out in front of the other so you have some balance. Fighting style," Moody instructed him, "You got that?"

"Yes sir."

Moody nodded to him stiffly and then addressed the whole group, "Well it looks like you've all somehow passed day one. This is not a cause for celebration; it gets much harder after this. However, you have all proved that you have some balls- even the ladies- and so I'm going to let you know a bit about what we're going to be doing. This first month will be dedicated primarily to physical training. Then physical training will only take up the first two hours of the day and the rest will be dedicated to basic magical training and basic dueling practices. That will last for the rest of your first year here; this will be your basic training. Instructors will rotate every week and you will stay in this same group unless we loose so many people from it that it will need to be assimilated into another one. This is highly possible, like I said only about half of you will pass this first year.

"The next two years are advanced training and will be divided up into seven, three-month periods dedicated to seven different areas which you must pass in order to succeed as well as a final three-month testing period. Of course, basic magic and basic physical fitness will not be ignored during this time; we _will_ keep up with it, in the mornings, your spell knowledge will also be greatly increased during this period. The first two are Basic Knowledge courses; the first is review of things you should have learned in school and needed to know to pass do well on your NEWTS, which all of you have done in order to get here. The later will be mostly new knowledge, it will consist of legal processes, our government and we will look into past cases that Aurors have worked. The next two are Concealment and Disguise and Stealth and Tracking; I expect what you are learning in those courses is self explanatory. The next three are Dueling and Tactics, Solo Fighting and finally Team Fighting. The final test will come in the last three-months; it will be basic field work with senior aurors. If you don't mess up too bad in that you are welcomed to the ranks of the aurors," Moody finished up and looked into the faces of all the recruits for a good minute. He asked if there were any questions and then continued on without waiting for any.

He had them run some warm-up laps and then started them off on weight machines. They had touched on them briefly the day before but now they really got into them. Most of the muggle-borns knew how to work them, or could figure them out, as they were based off of muggle equipment, but Moody had to show a few others- the two annoying, girl-crazy twins (Kane and Patrick) included- how to do it. He gave them each a checklist for the machines and a pencil for them to write down how many reps and how much weight themselves, and then gave them an hour and a half to work on it. Once the twins got a hang of it they instantly began racing and competing for the best scores.

In the next event everyone got the opportunity to compete against each other. It was an obstacle course, with walls to climb over, ropes and rungs to swing across, nets to crawl under, swampy ponds to swim across and second year trainees shooting random spell fire.

Moody grinned wolfishly and ordered them to hand their wands over. Moody nodded to the two girls and the sandy haired boy (Sam) who pulled wands from holsters that were obviously taken care of with a meticulous eye. The twins were yelled at for leaving their wands in their back pockets, "Better men than you idiots have lost their buttocks for leaving their wands in their back pockets. Basic wand safety, nobody pays any mind to it anymore. Get a holster for that thing!" Four others also had holsters but needed to give their wands a cleaning every once in a while, "There will be times when these wands will stand between you and death, take care of it and it will take care of you." Mark called his first wand, holly and phoenix feather, 11 inches, from a summoning wand holster (one that allows the owner to call his or her wand to his or her hand without needed to pull it out) on his left, upper arm and pulled his second wand, holly and dragon heartstring, 11 inches, from unfelt wand holster (one that will not be noticed or felt unless the owner desires it) from his lower back- an ideal place in case he gets his hands tied behind his back, something that has saved his life more than once before. Alastor raised an eyebrow at this and commented, "Good to see you're prepared today, pretty boy," which Mark decided to take as a compliment, even though he disliked being referred to as 'boy.'

Moody then broke them up into five pairs, both the girls were with the boys, the twins were separated as well and Mark was last with Sam. All but one of the team made failed to make it past the quarter mark; one of the girls, black skinned and black haired with light eyes, Bailey, made it almost half way before she was shot down by two nasty looking stunners while crawling under the net. Finally Mark and Sam were up.

"Ready pretty boy? On your mark, get set, GO!" Moody started them off with a loud bang from his wand. Both started off at a run, where Mark gained an early lead and started to scale the rock wall. The stunners hadn't started yet, that would happen after he jumped down on the other side. Sam caught up with him on the wall, having more upper body strength than his competitor and managed to jump down before him. _He's paying more attention to beating me than to the stunners, and he got lucky too, most of the other trainees got hit jumping over this ledge, _Mark thought, _seeing as no one's managed to complete this thing I don't have to beat him to the finish line, stunners will take care of that, I just need to survive to get there myself. _

He peaked over the edge of the wall and found that most stunners were focused on Sam; he faked to the left side of the wall and then jumped down on the right. Climbing the ladder he stayed to the edge so the bar of the ladder protected him from most of the spell fire. Then, rather than swinging across below he jumped on top and made a mad dash for the other end using the ladder rungs to step on. He passed Sam below him as he went, who was using a very effective swinging motion to avoid the stunners. Angry, Sam reached up and pulled at his ankle causing Mark to loose his balance, his chin hit the edge of the ladder with a dull clunk and then he fell off to the side into the mud below. He stayed there for a moment, his heart was pounding in his ears, his head was spinning, and a desperate ache in his chest told him he was winded. _Stupid_. A voice called out to the right, it was the second year trainees talking, "one down, one to go ­­­—that one didn't last long—man what a hit—he'll feel that tomorrow_"_. Mark let them think he was down for a couple of minutes, letting Sam take the lead and letting his body calm itself. Then he slowly flipped over, keeping one ear on the second years' conversations to see if they noticed him moving. They hadn't. He began to army crawl out, favoring his left arm.

Once he was out of the pit he glanced to his right. Two of the older recruits were taking turns firing at Sam trying to direct him into a corner— toying with him. The other three were behind them egging them on, all of them were faced away form him. Their instructor was the only one sweeping the field with his eyes, they met Mark's dark ones and widened in surprise— he had already started to scale the rope ladder to the top of the magically swinging ropes. Mark braced himself, readying for the instructor to shout out and the barrage of spells to start again but the instructor just winked; the message was clear— it was the trainees' job to watch out for the newbs, not his.

He was across the ropes by the time they had finished with Sam. They spent a few minutes congratulating each other before one of them noticed him, running by Sam in the sand pit and diving under the crawling net. Quickly propelling himself by pushing with his legs and pulling with his arms he made it halfway before the stunners started flying again. He rolled back and forth to help avoid the spells as he made his way out into the open and dove into the water. Swimming to the bottom kept him safe from the rest of the spells, which either fizzled out once it hit the water or slowed down so that he could easily dodge them. He looked up to see where most of the spells were hitting above him on the opposite end of the pool. Picking a relatively quiet spot, he went up for air quickly before dipping back. Then the waiting game began again. His ears had began to hurt and his heart was beating loudly somewhere in his forehead. There was a pattern to their spells, he realized. Counting off he was able to launch himself out of the water while missing the incoming spells. He took off at a run, going in a wild, zigzagging pattern and made it to the other end, where the adrenaline began to wear off letting the pain set in.

Moody had him sit down and went through the course reviving the others in his group. Once they were all gathered he pointed out each and everyone's mistake and told them how they should have done it, this included Mark who was repeatedly told just how damn lucky he was and how this wouldn't have happened in real life. Personally, Mark didn't think he would have to worry about scaling an obstacle course without a wand and with death eaters popping rounds off from the sidelines in 'real life,' so he didn't feel too concerned. His face must have been getting progressively closer in color of his shirt because Moody then ordered one of the second years to take him back to the infirmary for a patch up. As he was leaving, Mark noticed that Moody had started in on Sam for trying to sabotage a fellow trainee, saying that, even though they were to compete with each other, they weren't enemies trying to kill each other; plenty of others trying to do that.

The matron bustled about him in the infirmary, muttering to herself, "Concussion, nasty one too. And oh my look at those bruises on the shoulder and lower back. What they do to these trainees, I swear, it ought to be illegal." It was too white in here, always was in hospitals. It was making him dizzy and making the shapes fall in and out of focus. Two potions were thrust under his nose and Mark obediently downed them. They were as thick as jell-o, but with more chunks and a taste like the smell of old shoes. He made a face.

There was a groan from off to his left as the doorway opened; he went to grab his wand only to realize that Moody still had it. He suddenly felt almost naked and defenseless. Luckily it was only another injured trainee. "Hey Tonks," Mark said with a small wave, she grimaced at him. Another recruit was supporting her as she was limping and one arm was bent at a funny angle.

"Wotcher," she said weakly.

"Mercy! What the hell have they done to you, child? I'm going to murder whichever officer allowed this. Bumbling idiots, the lot of them, think more with their balls than with their brains," She bustled over and began diagnostic charms then gathered some potions and began healing her, kicking the other trainee out in the process. After she was healed the matron gave them explicit orders not to leave this room with out her say so, or Merlin help them, they were going to get it. Then she went into an adjoining room to write up incident reports.

Mark sighed and laid back suddenly feeling old and tired. He glanced over at Tonks, she had pulled her knees up to her chest, dipped her head to her knees and had let her hair turn a mousey brown. "Hey, you ok?"

"No, I'm not. I'm such a bloody clutz. It's only the second day, and I'll probably be booted out because I can't stay on my own two feet. Bloody Hell, I was a fool for thinking I could manage this," she mumbled darkly and Mark realized with a growing fear that she was beginning to cry. _Oh Shit._

Mark pealed himself off his bed and instantly began to miss its comfort, but he didn't turn back, instead he went over to the edge of Tonks' bed and sat down next to her. Unsure of what he was supposed to do he racked his brain for memories and fell upon one where Fred comforted Angelica, for a reason he could no longer remember.

"Hey, look at me, I've got a very important question for you," Tonks looked into his eyes; hers had turned a dull grayish color, "If you were a pirate, would you put your parrot on this shoulder—"he put his hand that was closest to her on her shoulder that was closest to him—"or this shoulder," his hand found its way to the opposite shoulder, leading his arm around her back and then pulled her close in a one-armed hug. She gave a watery laugh and bent her forehead to his shoulder. Blushing, Mark looked away, _calm down, Ginny would be Ok with this, she always liked Tonks, and she'd want you to comfort her. _

"And when I first met you I thought you didn't have a personality, and here you are, not 24 hours later, putting _the_ lamest moves on me," she rubbed her sleeve across her nose and Mark realized with no little amount of relief that she had stopped crying. "Do you suppose they'll kick me out?"

"You? No, I'll be that you make it all the way until you're ranked as a full auror, even if you're a clutz."

"And what makes you think that you know me well enough to make that assertion, Mr. Evans? I could be god awful for all you know."

"Trust me," he looked into her eyes, "I know." They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes and when Mark looked down again she was asleep, _probably tanked up on all sorts of potions_. He eased her back into her bed, pulled the blanket up around her and went to his own bed to relax.

It was snowing. Soft flakes filtered down onto him as he lay on the ground, head cradled in his hands as he looked at the sky. "There you are, Harry," a voice scolded from behind him and he tilted his head back to look at her, "We've been looking all over for you, we were worried sick." He felt a pang of guilt for worrying them, but she didn't seem too angry, and rather than scolding him further she plopped down next to him and curled into his side.

Harry kissed Ginny deeply, pulling her towards him with a certain desperation. It was cold outside, but she was so warm and was on top of him smiling and running her hands through his hair. But the air began to cool her down too and the sky darkened and she stopped smiling and moving, stopped breathing, started bleeding. She began to float away and he reached out to grab her, desperately grasping a hold of her hand, but it was slipping and all he was left with was the ring from her left hand finger. The wind was whistling and the stars began to wink out one at a time until it was completely black. Except for the ring, that is, which glittered in the dark. It made the shadows fade away, revealing a battlefield. He was running. His heart beat wildly in his chest and in his ears in a percussions rhythm. Where the hell were his damn wands, he couldn't find them! And all around him they closed in, their breathing getting closer and closer until it was on him and he could smell their breaths, rotting and foul. Harry couldn't breathe, his lungs and throat refused to work and even though all the muscles in his chest tried to pull in air he couldn't. It was like all the air had simply abandoned him there in the circle of death eaters. There was blood on his hands and it flowed around him until he couldn't see.

"Evans! Evans! Wake up," cold water drenched him and Mark woke up sputtebnu8ring. "You Ok, pretty boy?" a gruff voice asked as Alastor peered at him from above. He sat up, cold and breathing heavy. The air rushed back.

"I'm fine," he replied, and then leaned over to vomit.

"You look like hell. Here, I brought you your wands back, I've no idea what was going through your head when you left them with me. And I brought you out some lunch. You should eat something when your stomach calms down."

Mark realized that Tonks and the healer were starring at him as well and he self consciously went to pat his hair down over his forehead before he realized, once more that he didn't have a fringe. Stopping his hand halfway he called his wand to his hand and cast a drying and warming charm on him, he still felt cold and alone. He then realized his necklace had fallen out, it was a simple chain with Ginny's ring on it; he quickly stuffed it back into his shirt.

Moody gave him a once over, the boy was still shivering, "Look, eat your lunch and when the healer gives you the Ok go home and relax, you need it. I'll see you tomorrow, on time preferably. Until then, I have nine other bumbling idiots to take care of," and he left with a nod in the direction of Tonks and the healer.

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**AN: **Well, there's chapter 1. yAy. It might take a bit longer to get chapter 2 out as schools going to start up again soon, but I've already started a bit of work on it so hopefully you'll be seeing it soon. Reviews make it go faster. Also, if you're interested in becoming a beta for this story, send me a pm. 


	3. Chapter 2

**AN: **Hey all, author here. Sorry it took a day longer than I expected to get this up, there was an instance with a sickness and I slept through most of the time I was going to spend writing this thing, then I had soo much homework to make up and that essay for college to write before the deadline last weekend and…no more excuses I'm sorry and here it is!

**Disclaimer: **so not mine, characters, spells, places, etc. belongs to JKR

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For the rest of the week Mark made a point of avoiding socializing with the rest of the trainees and trainers, especially Tonks and Moody, not that the latter was one to socialize, but if he had felt so inclined to talk he would have found it nearly impossible with him. He had also tried to avoid Alice, but she kept cornering him in the gym before and after Training. Besides, he didn't have anywhere else to go and couldn't very well kick her out of a place that he wasn't even supposed to be in. She seemed to realize that he wasn't much in mood for conversing, though she still kept him company and would tell him stories about her and her family or her time at Hogwarts without being bothered by his lack of response.

He began to see a lot of similarities between himself and Alice. Perhaps she noticed it to and that was why she would take the time to seek him out to offer comfort. After all, she wakes up to find ten years gone, three of her best friends are dead and a fourth is in prison because of it, but she didn't spend her time at home wallowing about it, nor did she try to pull together and sink into what she had left. Instead she threw herself into her work to train upcoming aurors to make sure things like that wouldn't happen to other people. That was something Mark would do, and in a way he was doing it by throwing himself into training; it helped to make sure he wouldn't have time for sad thoughts or to make friends who just die off, and it helped to make sure that he would be ready for when the time came that he'd need to know these skills. He respected her for that.

In her conversations, sometimes Alice would drop in truths that Mark wasn't sure that she told to anyone else. Like how she felt guilty about keeping long hours at work when she had already missed out on most of her son's life and how her efforts to take custody of young Harry Potter had so far ended in failure. Or she talked about the spell that brought Frank and her back from insanity that no one could understand or explain and how that scared her in a way. Or how she needed to do this job well because it was something that made sense and was laid out in a simple and planned way, and she felt like everything would just fall apart without that structure. She hoped Frank understood, it sounded like he did sometimes but she wasn't entirely sure.

Alice normally wouldn't tell anyone all this, especially not someone she had just met, but Mark gave her glances of understanding that made it easy to talk to him. Besides, it was unlikely that he would tell anyone seeing as he rarely spoke more than a few words in a day.

She wasn't there when he came in on Saturday morning, probably spending some much deserved time with her family, especially with the date for Hogwarts quickly approaching. He found that he missed her incessant chatter though and ended his warm-up quickly. Then he went back to his apartment and took a shower and made himself breakfast. By the time he finished up his eggs sunny-side-up and crispy bacon it was still early.

_Merlin, who thought going back into the past would be so dull. I need friends or books or a project or something for the weekends._ It seemed unlikely that he was going to make too many friends at this point, especially after alienating the one person his age who had made an effort with him for the last three days of the five days they had known each other— at least in this timeline. Books would also be a problem until he got his first paycheck, which wasn't going to happen until the first month of training was up, the money he had left would only last him until then if he reserved it for groceries only. A project he had, supposing saving the world from the evil that is Lord Voldemort and his merry men counted, he just didn't know how to go about it. He needed Hermione to offer guidance, but the one he had known was tortured for information and murdered in their headquarters when he went out on a mission—something he still felt guilty about—and the one available to him now was just learning that magic existed beyond fantasy books.

As for the planning he had managed on his own, he still had another three weeks before he could make the grab for Scabbers at the train station 9 ¾. Beyond that he wasn't sure; after all he was only 17. Perhaps he could go to Albus for help, but he didn't know that the old man would believe him, and had no way of ensuring that he wouldn't just be used as a pawn again if he did. Better to wait and somehow get included in the Order of the Phoenix when it was started up again, so he'd know what was going on without loosing his autonomy. But that left the problem of waiting for four years until Voldemort was revived and Cedric was killed, and letting all the shit that went on in between happen too. What he needed to do was begin to collect the horcruxs; the locket he knew about and knew where it was, but there was no point in getting it until he could get the sword of Gryffindor, which needed to wait until little Harry saved Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets. In that case he could pick up a Basilisk fang just in case and the diary as well. Then he'd have to somehow destroy the ring without letting Albus destroy himself. Then there was Voldemort's pet snake and then there were two more he still didn't know about and Tom himself. He hoped that Albus had known and simply hadn't had the time before his death, or at least had the means of figuring it out, especially if he lived long enough this time to combine forces with Hermione to figure it out. That still left him with very little to do on his weekends for the next few years. Everything else was sort of up in the air.

He looked at his still bare living room with a sigh. The couch, which was supposed to show up Tuesday, had yet to make an appearance and instead there was a big bare spot next to his coffee table. Sitting down in that spot he dropped his head into his hands and just held it there for a bit. _Bullocks this, at least I can go back to the store and look into that, which ought to kill a total of one hour._

Mark got dressed, taking as much time with it as he could, which still wasn't much. He decided to walk there rather than magicking his way into some alley right next to it, took longer that way and the fresh air would do him some good. It was raining outside—typical England, but he decided against fetching an umbrella or transfiguring himself one. He let himself get lost in the bustle of Muggle London, watching as others hustled too and fro, trying to escape the rain as much as possible. Mark liked the rain, it was cleansing, it was one thing he had missed a lot in the future; when all the magical frightening began to affect the weather there were only droughts or terrible thunderstorms that cackled with supernatural lightening that scorched and broke the ground. Charlie Weasley had been struck down by one of those in one of those storms; he was fighting on broomstick in a major battle when it happened. Ginny had been heartbroken and had locked herself in her room for over a week, until the day of the funeral. There wasn't much left to be buried. This light rain was different though, Mark even liked the way his converses sloshed and squeaked from the puddles.

Even taking his time, it wasn't long before he reached the thrift store where he had bought the couch. When he first saw it, he had written it off as something better fit for a dump, but he kept coming back to it after finding nothing he liked in the rest of the building. A second glance told him different. It had been a gorgeous thing, once, made of a deeply colored wood that had been elegantly carved into curling arm rests and legs, and black leather cushions giving it a refined air. That was before neglectful care had seen its wood scratched and dinged, with names and hearts carved in some places along the frame and one legged gnawed raw by some teething animal—at least, what he hoped had been an animal, though a particularly vicious baby might have been a possibility. The leather looked as if it had seen one too many family pets as well, with deep scratches forcing stuffing to bulge out like pus from an infected wound. But it had been gorgeous once, and Mark knew that magic could make it so again, so he had bought it for a mere $40. This plan fell through, of course, when it failed to get delivered to him following his purchase.

He walked up to man behind the desk. He was older and looked sort of like a lumberjack; with a red and black flannel t-shirt over a pair of faded blue jeans. The thinning patch of hair and his salt-n-pepper beard showed that he was aging. Mark tapped his foot impatiently, but the point he was trying to get across was muffled by the carpeted floor. Still the cashier finished up with the young woman buying a small desk quickly enough, but then leered at her bum as she went out to where it was being loaded up into her truck by what appeared to be her boyfriend.

Mark rapped the glass counter with his knuckles sharply to get the man's attention away from the girl's finer assets. He wheeled around and noticed Mark for the first time. Clearing his throat first, he asked Mark, in a gravely voice characteristic of a life-time smoker, "Can I help you?"

"Yes. I bought a coach last Monday. It was supposed to be delivered Tuesday night and it wasn't, and hasn't been delivered yet. I was wondering when I could expect it, if at all."

"Do you have a receipt?"

"Yes, right here," he said and handed it over. The man looked at it as if he was trying to examine a priceless document for proof of forgery and Mark was glad that he had bothered to keep the little slip of paper. Then he pulled up a document on the old monitor and paged through some files.

"My apologies, it seems that it must've slipped through the cracks. I'll have my lads bring it over this evening, if that's alright with you?"

"Around eight will work. Try to make sure it actually makes it there this time," Mark replied and turned on his heel and headed out the door, making sure to walk very tall so that if the man leered at him he would see him to be a very imposing person. Somehow, this made him feel even more like a child on the inside, as if he was playing dress up.

Once he was out in the streets he let himself fall back into the throng of people bustling through the streets. _They're all so much like ants, most of them doing the same damn thing every day and following whoever they perceive as in charge without their adding their own personal thoughts into the matter_. Mark stopped paying attention to where he was going and just kept thinking; he wondered what it would be like to have lived a life where he fell outside of the affects of the war and found that he couldn't quite imagine it. What if Ginny and him had been allowed and normal and happy life?

Nymphadora Tonks had spent the morning out with three of her mates celebrating making it through her first week of training, which, all her friends had agreed in a joking manner was something of a miracle. They had gotten up early, gone to a local field and had played a pickup game of quidditch with some local boys, three vs. three with two chasers and a beater each. They had reached a score of 200 a little bit shy of noon, which they had all agreed on from the start would mark the winning team, and had left in celebratory glee akin to that felt by professional players after their first win. Now, soaked, filthy and starving to boot they were ready to either pick a muggle place for some fish and chips or head back to their own places and meet up after a shower and a nap.

Laughing, one of her mates, Alex, said something to her about her hair and she looked into a dark window as she passed to check out her reflection. Her originally purple and spiky hair had dulled under the splatter of dirt, which had happened when she dove from her low flying broom to the ground to avoid a bludger, and was now lankily dripping down in a very wet-dog fashion, just as Alex had pointed out to her. Keeping with the joke she shook her head vigorously, in an excited-puppy way, giving all of her friends a splattering of mud and gunk. The she looked around conspiratorially, to make sure no one was looking, and scrunched up her face to turn her hair her trademark bubblegum pink, which stood out a bit better form the lingering mud, and whipped a hand through it to spike it back up in an appropriate manner.

They joked around a bit more until Tonks finally pulled herself away saying, "I think I need a steamy shower and a warm meal, I'll catch up with you lot latter." They all waved goodbye to her as she turned around and tumbled away. The further she got away from her companions the more time she had to think and the more she began to realize she was wet, bruised and beginning to feel a little bit miserable. She quickly pulled her sweater around her a bit more securely and hurried on, looking up only briefly to make sure she was going the right way—Muggle London could be so confusing.

During one of those glances up to check a sign post she caught something out of the corner of her eye. She quickly whipped around to check if her eyes were playing tricks on her, somehow avoiding being tripped up by suddenly changing the flow of human traffic caused by her sudden stop. There he was, going down some side street with a dazed look on his face: Mark. Making a snap decision, she began to chase him down the alley.

So lost in his thoughts, Mark hadn't realized he had started to cry. He noticed this however when he was brought crashing back to Earth with someone shouting a name that he had just begun to associate as his own. "MARK, hey slow down!"

He wiped an arm across his face to clear the tears and turned around. A shock of bright pink hair was bobbing in and out of traffic in his general direction. He was about to turn away and find a way to disappear down a side alley when Tonks tripped over the edge of a trash can and was sent sprawling down the street with a sickening crunch. Mark paused to see if she'd get up and then hurried over to her, squeezing his way in between a gathering crowd of muggles whispering and wondering if she was badly hurt.

"Tonks, you alright?"

There was a deep moan and then, "Bullocks, of course I'm not bloody alright. Can't go ten meters without falling flat on my face," She pushed herself up into sitting position and looked around darkly. Puddle water was dripping down her face and a potentially ruined Weird Sister's t-shirt, which was looking more like a rag than anything else. There was a gash down her forehead, which looked eerily like a lightening bolt, that was dripping blood down the left side of her face.

Mark hissed in sympathy, "That looks nasty," he calmly said, pointing a finger at it. She brought her hand up to it and winced as if expecting a blow when her fingers met the cut, "Well don't touch it, we're going to need to go get that cleaned and fixed up."

Standing up, he offered both his arms to the girl on the ground with the intent to help her up and keep her on both her feet. She knocked his hands aside and, wobbly, stood on her own.

"I don't need you're bloody help, Evans, what I need is an explanation for why you've been ignoring me these past few days. You've been acting like a complete wanker!" raved Tonks loudly, attracting more people to what had been a dissipating crowd around them. Mark noticed the people forming a circle with growing unease, he felt like a side show, something he had hoped to avoid this time around, and their whispering and disapproving looks were making him begin to sweat. One voice, from a girl directly behind him, speculated that Tonks was pregnant and he was trying to wiggle out of the responsibility; another that sounded suspiciously like his uncle muttered darkly about how people like _them_ shouldn't be let out of hospitals and prisons. Instincts from the war that had been burned into him like a brand began to peep up, telling him that he was surrounded if someone decided to attack; it made his palms itch. He wanted to get out of there.

"Look, we can talk about this later but right now I think we should calm down, get you someplace dry so we can look at your forehead," he tried to appease her, even if he had no intention of doing too much talking.

"Oh right, Pretty Boy, and then I'm going to turn around and you'll have disappeared again and won't say a damn word to me, we can talk right here." A finger was jammed into the direction of the ground for emphasis and her foot stomped up a wave of puddle water as well.

Mark had let Moody call him Pretty Boy because he was his superior and would think him a whiner if he told him not to, and wouldn't change his ways because of it either. Tonks was not his superior and he did not like being called Pretty Boy. "Don't call me that, Tonks," his temper was beginning to flare, and it showed in his body language. He had taken a step towards Tonks with his left leg, pulling his feet apart into a more balanced stance and had risen on finger towards her in a warning fashion.

"Don't treat me like a petulant child, Pretty Boy. I don't deserve this and I don't deserve the silent treatment I've been getting. I'm not letting you turn yourself into an introverted arse just because of one bloody nightmare!"

"Look, Nymphadora—"he started but didn't get too far before he was cut off again.

"What did you just call me?" she was getting angrier and a small part of Mark's brain was hoping that neither of their appearance was changing to reflect their emotions, as often happened with metamorphmagi.

"Your name, Nymphadora, don't you recognize it?" his voice was a sickly sweet that reminded even him of Professor Umbridge.

"You little brat!" she yelled like a child who just realized her litter brother had opened her diary, scanned the pages and uploaded them to the internet. Then she lowered her shoulder and tackled him like a rugby player, effectively throwing both of them into a dark and deep puddle. Her small fists rained down on him and he first tried to simply shield his head until he found his wind. Then he flipped both of them over and pinned those small fists above her angry head.

"That," he panted, "Was uncalled for."

Tonks paused and refused to meet his eyes for a few moments then, detecting no change, demanded, "Get off me, you big bully."

"I'm the bully? You're the one who just tackled me in the middle of a busy street!"

"Well, you deserved, what with ignoring me and calling me my first name and all," a blush was beginning to creep up her cheeks and she had to screw up her face to keep it down.

Shifting a bit in a way that was making it very hard for Tonks to keep her blush under control, Mark managed to transfer the hold on both her hands to one of his, leaving one free to angle her face so that she was looking into his eyes, "I am sorry about that. I've just had so much to deal with, up here," he tapped one finger against his temple, "and I just didn't want to have to deal with any questions. So I shut you out, which wasn't fair or right but I'm not going to sit here, on top of you, and deny that. So, can you forgive me?"

The girl pretended to think about it for a bit, "I suppose I can, so long as you're not planning on doing it any time soon. Now get off me." Mark laughed at this and got off before pulling her up with him. She stumbled a bit and fell into him; wrapping her arms around him and slyly pulling his wand form the holster on his left arm when he reached out to steady her before darting away again.

"Didn't think I'd let you off that easy, did you Mr. Evans? Catch me if you can!" and with that exclamation she ran off into the crowd, darting around like a scared rabbit. The crowed scattered as he growled out and began to chase after her. After winding through half a dozen streets and back alleys, Mark found himself chasing her up no less than seven flights of stairs to the entrance to an apartment that he just missed catching her at. _Damn she's fast. _Instead he met only a closed door, which he pounded on with one fist while going through all the spells he knew that would deal with locked doors; more than a dozen beyond the simple alohomora.

"Just a moment," the sing-song tone of Tonks voice flitting into the hallway from inside the apartment only infuriated him more; it sounded like she was singing a song to lull a small child to sleep. Mark slammed on the door even harder, and when it opened suddenly he just barely avoided hammering Tonks in the head. "Ah, come in Mr. Evans, I've been expecting you." He walked in cautiously and sat in the offered seat only after tapping it cautiously with one finger to see if it had any jinks. He kept one hand behind his back incase she was about to draw on him, and kept his stance easy in preparation for a dirty fight.

But Tonks didn't seem interested in a fight, "Look here, Mr. Evans. I am still quite angry at you so I am going to take a shower and you are going to make me a very nice lunch, because I'm hungry. If you're nice and actually acknowledge my existence maybe I'll think about giving you you're wand back. Do we have a deal," a hand was extended to him and Mark noticed that every nail was painted a different color with a different design. He paused, wary again for an attack, "Merlin, Mark, I'm not going to bite you!" He paused again, briefly this time, and shook it.

"What about you're forehead?"

"Don't worry about it, this sort of thing happens all the time. Now chop chop, lunch better be ready by the time I'm clean and changed."

Sighing, Mark took a moment to wonder how exactly he had managed to get into this mess. He checked the cupboards and the fridge for supplies before deciding on a nice light salad, pasta with meat sauce and even garlic bread. He wanted it to be good as he was beginning to feel like he had hurt Tonks more than he had intended by ignoring her and was starting for feel a tad guilty. Donning an apron that looked like it had survived more fires than meals, Mark began to make lunch.

In the other room, a newly cleaned Tonks was picking out clothes and trying to decide what color to make her hair for lunch. A faded pair of blue jeans would look nice, especially paired with her fitted t-shirt that was fairly new. It was black with a bright blue sparrow flying towards a star. Then she gave her hair gentle corkscrew-curves that went to her chin and colored them black with bright blue highlights, to go with her shirt. Soft smells were beginning to waft in from the crack under her door in an enticing manner. As a last minute decision, before she left her room, she sprayed a puff of her favorite perfume on her chest.

Tonks followed her nose out into the kitchen where Mark was humming a light tune that sounded something like some sort of rock. She paused at the doorway and just took the look of him in. There was a relaxed feeling there that she had never seen on him before; he looked his age, that of a teenager barely at the brink of adulthood. He gave whatever was cooking on the stove a stir and a shake and began to sing full out, bopping his head along with it; jamming out in the way that you only do alone in your room with no one bearing witness.

"I want something else to get me through this,  
Semi-charmed kind of life baby baby,  
I want something else,  
Im not listening when you say Good-Bye!"

Tonks bit back a laugh as he picked up his spoon and began using it as a microphone. The sun filtered in from a window behind him and it gave him a distinct super star impression, even in his practically ruined clothes with the beat up apron.

"I believe in the sand beneath my toes,  
The beach gives a feeling an earthy feeling,  
I believe in the faith that grows,  
And the four right chords can make me cry,  
When I'm with you I feel like I could die,  
And that would be all right, all right—"

The oven took this moment to give a gentle bing, alerting the cook that the garlic bread and causing Tonks to give a small yelp of surprise and jump back, knocking a chair down which hit the ground with a drum-like crash. Mark wheeled around in surprise and gave her a look that screamed deer-caught-in-the-headlights-and-you're-not-slowing-down. A couple tense minutes passed where the only sound was the alarm beeping every few seconds like a child throwing a temper tantrum after not getting what he wanted. "I thought you were taking a shower?" he stuttered out, a deep blush rising in his cheeks.

"I_was_ in the shower. Now I'm out. Don't stop on my accord, you have a nice voice," she urged, wanting him to finish the song, but he just ducked his head down as if she had been scolding him and turned away from him to finish up his meal. Tonks sighed, put the chair upright and began to set the table.

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**AN: **Well, there's chapter 2, with a little more development of the Alice/Harry and the Honks relationship going on. I'm not exactly sure when the next chapter will be out, depends on how this beta I'm trying to get at pans out. Either way, it should be relatively soon so try to hold on. Updates about new chapters will be posted on my profile page so check that out. Finally, reviews are like adrenaline, they make me go faster, leave one :-p

Disclaimer: And, of course, the song is Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind, but ya'll should know that


	4. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **So not mine, characters, spells, places, etc. belongs to JKR

**AN:** Hey everybody! Sorry it took so long to get this next chapter out. My comp crashed and I only just got it fixed up so I can write. I did take the time to make this chapter extra long though; it is almost 7,000 words. (yAy). The next one will get up much faster.

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On Sunday Mark woke up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat. He jumped out of bed and ran to the loo before emptying his stomach into the toilet—it was mostly water, a testament to the dinner he missed that past afternoon. He hadn't eaten anything since his awkward lunch in Tonks' apartment. After finishing up and flushing the toilet he grabbed his toothbrush and paste and began to wash the taste from his mouth, leaning heavily on the sink as he did so. The mirror was across form him; it showed a boy of average height, average build and average complexion on the verge of becoming an adult. His hair was messy from sleep and his black eyes matched the bags underneath. The muscles underneath his skin looked tense, like he was a predator about to pounce on something meaty and oblivious. Mark closed his eyes and let his muscles relax and when he looked again a different person was looking back at him. 

Harry Potter was a little bit shorter, a little bit skinner and a little bit paler, giving him an all over sicker appearance. Still, it was a far cry from the child that had been in school, as he didn't look malnourished anymore even though he was still the perfect body type for a seeker. Goose bumps rising across his skin broke him away from his starring contest with the mirror and reminded him that it was chilly in his apartment, and he only slept in boxers. A flick of his wrist called a wand to him and another flick adjusted the taps of his shower so that hot water and steam began to cascade down behind the curtain. He pulled his boxers off and stepped under the flow.

Dark thought began to invade his conscious and he struggled to calm his mind enough to focus on other thoughts. He thought about Tonks and instantly felt guilty. _I shouldn't have been so cold to her after she walked in on me. Fuck that was embarrassing. Though she was only trying to be nice and I just closed up on her again._ Harry pulled a bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo from the rack and began to suds up his hair. _I'll send her an owl, invite her out for coffee or something, she'll probably stand me up because I've been an arse and that will be the end of it. She's be better off without me anyways, most people are. That's why they're all gone now._

Harry jumped out of the shower, dried off and put on some muggle clothes. Looking in the mirror, he slid back into the persona of Mark Evans and then headed out the door. It was still dark out and only a few sketchy people ambled along the street. He made his way to Diagon Alley and then found the post office that was, along with Gringotts, the only building that had twenty-four hour service. Eeylops Owl Emporium was along the way, and for a moment Mark thought about going in there when it opened and buying Hedwig, as young, eleven year old Harry wouldn't have had the opportunity to do so himself. He missed her greatly; she had been one of his first friends and it felt like a part of his innocence disappeared when he lost his owl. But Harry deserved to have her as well, Merlin knows there would be times when he'd need her for comfort, and a different owl simply wouldn't suffice; no other one would ever be Hedwig.

The post office had only one worker there at all times, which is why it could afford to be open for the entire day. That person dealt with complaints and problems and that was it, everything else customers might need to do to send a letter they did themselves. A name is spoken into a receiver and a few knuts are inserted into a small slot, much like those on muggle vending machines. An owl is then released from the Owlery fly out from an above window to the paying costumer. A slip of paper comes out of a slot at the same time, and the pen chained to the desk can be moved to write a small message. The price varies depending on the length of the letter and the distance of the trip—how exactly it figures this all out, Mark didn't know or care. He simply went through the process and sent a short note off to Tonks asking her to meet him outside the magical end of the Leaky Cauldron at noon so he could buy her lunch or something. The tawny owl he employed for the job blinked blearily at him as he tied the note to its leg and then needed a gently shove to get going. Mark shook his head in sadness, _definitely not quite Hedwig. _

At 12:32 Mark was ready to give up and go home, or at least do something else. People-watching was not a favorite pastime of his, and it had long since gotten boring. He pushed himself up off the brick wall he had been leaning against and started to make his way back through the Leaky Cauldron into Muggle London.

"Hey, Evans, wait up!" a rushed voice from behind him shouted. Mark turned around; Tonks was bobbing towards him sporting a reddish-blonde messy bun which matched a fitted t-shirt and the belt that was holding up a pair of beaten and ripped jeans that looked big enough to have belonged to a past boyfriend. "Wotcher, Mark. You weren't planning on skipping out on me were you?"

"No, I thought that I had been stood up, so I was going to go home," he defended.

"Well, I'm not going to lie. The thought had crossed my mind. After yesterday's lunch I'm still not sure I'm interested in another."

"Yeah," his feet shuffled nervously against the cobbled street, "I'm sorry about that. I just-"

"Have a lot going on?" Tonks finished for him.

"Have I used that line too many times already? Blimey," he sighed deeply, "I'm sorry. It isn't fair that you are taking the brunt of this and I'm sorry for it. I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to deal with it or how I'm supposed to act or how to even be normal or okay, and I'm sorry I'm pulling you into it."

Tonks had planned on being mad with Mark for a good deal of this outing, but after such a dialogue she couldn't do anything else but pull the much taller man into her arms. He stiffened at first and she dragged a hand up and down his back. His eyes stung and he could feel her small breasts pushing against him, and he could feel Ginny's ring digging into his chest. He pulled away sharply and took a few steps back into a wall; spinning around sharply he thrust his fist into the bricks a three times before Tonks pulled him away again.

"Bullocks. Bullocks. Bullocks," he muttered and then let her draw him into her again.

Tonks pulled away slightly so she could look into his face, "Who did this to you, Mark?" He didn't respond; he just looked up and away. There was a sigh. "You don't have to tell me now, or ever really. Just know that if you need to talk I'm a mostly decent listener." At first there wasn't a response to this, but then Mark gave a curt nod of his head and she released him and stepped away. "Ok, now that that was taken care of, I'm in the mood for some ice cream and I remember you saying something about treating." She gave him a few moments to compose himself and then he forced a smile onto his face and led her to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor.

They got there just before Florean was about to close the store for a lunch break. It happened sometimes, rarely though, when someone forgot to show up for their shift or quit last minute and then there's only one worker left and he has to eat. Tonks and Mark were the last to get ice cream; he got a double scoop cone of mint chocolate chip and she got a single scoop cone of rainbow sherbet with gummy bears on top. That rainbow sherbet lasted a good two minutes encompassing three licks and seventeen steps towards the outside tables when a loose cobble stone caught the edge of Tonks' toes, jarring the single scoop out of the rim of the cone and to the floor outside. She went to turn around, in order to get another one, but when she did she caught sight of Florean and Mark—who was lagging behind to pay for their treats—exiting the store and the former walked briskly off towards the Leaky Cauldron, leaving a locked shop behind him. When Mark got to her she looked like someone had ran, repeatedly, over her puppy.

"Oh Tonks, did you drop your ice cream?" he asked, and she nodded pitifully. "Come here," he pulled her him, rubbed one hand one his pants to clean it up a bit, and put her empty cone on level with his so he could push one of his scoops into her cone. "I know it's not rainbow sherbet, but I'd like to think that my flavor is a superior one."

"Mark," she paused, about to protest his generosity, but then changed her mind, smiled broadly and thanked him for his scoop, even though, "rainbow sherbet is obviously the better flavor." She walked over to the table with over exaggerated caution and then sat down to enjoy her ice cream with her friend.

When Frank leaned against the doorway facing into the study he was just behind his wife, who was gazing emptily out the window. There was a frown upon his face, which shouldn't be mistaken for displeasure at having her home for a weekend after keeping such long hours at the Academy. He just wished that now that she was home she'd feel more inclined to spend more time with the family, especially young Neville, who couldn't really understand. Frank walked across the room and slipped him arms around his wife's waist and pressed his lips to her neck, right below her ear. She relaxed back into him and he smiled. "Knut for your thoughts?"

"I'm worried about Mark," she said softly. Frank resisted the urge to roll his eyes; that boy was all she had to talk about since she started her Merlin-forsaken job. He's so this, he's so that, he can bench this much for this long. It was beginning to make him sick.

"I've finally gotten a response from Remus. He's agreed to come over for dinner in a week. Is that all right?" Frank changed the subject.

"Hm?" Her eyes were staring unfocused outside again.

"I said that I've finally gotten a response from Remus, and that he's agreed to come over for dinner in a week."

"Oh, that would be lovely. I hope he's doing ok. It must've been hard for him, the end of the War, you know. He really wasn't left with anyone to celebrate with, and scarcely had a reason to do so," She paused and just let Frank rock her back and forth in his arms, "Maybe I should invite Mark as well."

Her husband groaned, "Do you have to talk about him constantly? You already spend so much time with him. I was hoping that this could be some time to catch up with old friends and some family time for us."

Alice pulled away from her husband, "Well I'm sorry if I'm trying to do a good thing. He needs some help, I'm not sure if he has anyone."

"Oh, and we're the lucky family who gets to take in the stray?" His temper was flaring and his voice was rising higher with every syllable, "What about your own family? Do we matter at all to you anymore?"

Alice slapped Frank across the face. She was shaking too, but when she spoke it was clear and calm, "Of course I care about our family, how can you even ask me that? I love you and I love Neville; you're my husband and he's my baby."

He sighed and knew he had gone too far. When he spoke it was quieter and calmer than before, "I just don't understand. I don't get why you need to have a job right now. I don't get why you spend so much time away from us when you just got us back."

She sat down on the loveseat and Frank followed and joined her. "I thought you understood."

"I don't, and I'm going to need a little help if you want me to."

"I can't deal with it all right now, not the way you can. Lily's dead, she was my best friend. James and Peter are too and Sirius is in jail for Merlin's sake. My godchild is living with magic-hating muggles. My baby boy is about to go to Hogwarts. And we've lost ten years of our life and marriage. I can't face it right now; I just need some structure and something else to focus on to keep me sane," she broke off, unable to continue.

Frank held his wife as she started to cry.

The next morning Alice invited Mark to dinner for the following weekend when they met up at the gym. He agreed, hesitantly, on the condition that she wouldn't favor him in front of the other trainees, that was the last thing he needed. She laughed at this, in a soft sort of way that made him feel like smiling and laughing as well and said that was fine, "Don't worry, I won't embarrass you if that's not what you want."

"Oh, I'm fine with you embarrassing me, if that's what needs to be done. So long as when you're embarrassing me you're embarrassing the other's as well. Don't go out of your way to do it is all, and don't do it in that teacher's pet sort of way either," he said jokingly, to try and make her laugh again, but she just smiled and gave him an affectionate pat on the back. Mark wasn't quite sure what to say after that so he just finished up a couple more reps on the preacher press.

His warm-up and breakfast went quickly after that and he soon found himself in the MTR, early again with only a couple of morning people loitering around. Everyone was in before the clock hit seven and Moody had all of the trainees fall into rank like they had during his opening speech on the first day rather than dividing them all up into their color groups immediately.

"Welcome to week two of our training program. Congratulations, you all have more guts than I thought you had. Now you will experience your first change of leaders so you will all be working under someone new today. We will also begin individual meetings with you lot; roughly ten a day with groups based on your color. This way we get the opportunity to see what you expect to get from and to give to this program, as well as to tell you what you _should_ be expecting. This will take up the next two weeks, after that we will give you one more week of grace, which will bring us through the first month. Then we will begin having meetings with you on a need based schedule, for some of you it will be a warning, some last advice on things you must change, for others it will be a goodbye, best of luck and a notice to clean up and head home," Moody paused at this point to give a nasty smile to the recruits, "Oh, well."

Mark was close enough to the front to see Alice roll her eyes and mutter something about hopeless theatrics, to which Shaklebolt replied something about scare tactics and they both giggled a bit. Despite being Senior Aurors, they were young enough to still follow Alastor's lead and to have a healthy respect (that bordered on fear) for him, so they both tried to smother their laughter with their hands but broke out into new fits of it every time they caught each other's eyes. Mark felt himself drawn into their banter, it was so easy and normal that he couldn't help but feel jealous of it; he hadn't had something like that since Ron died. Thus distracted, he missed the second half of Moody's speech. He didn't even realize it was over until the girl who had been standing at attention next to him bumped his shoulder in a hurry to get to the rest of her group.

Shaking his head like a dog, he managed to pull himself away from Alice's conversation and began to hasten over to where the other green shirts were congregating, near a Junior Auror, the same red-headed one that the twins were ogling before. As it happened, Kane and Patrick were talking her up now. She was flirty, just like Ginny had been.

She laughed at something they said and noticed Mark come up, he was the last of her group for the week, "Thanks for joining us, I'm Amy. Mark right? You as happy as these two are to get out from under Mad-Eye's thumb?" Her accent was American and fast in a way that sometimes the spaces between words got lost and the words that should have been separated melded together.

"I thought the Junior Aurors cycled out every week," he said the first thing that came to his mind and then blushed and looked away when he realized how rude it sounded. Amy just laughed again though, rather than getting offended.

"Well, I'm actually training to become one of the leaders for the next group, so I won't be cycling out as regularly as the other Juniors. I'm going to be staying for two week stints, then going back to my regular post as a field operative for one to two weeks depending on how much action there is."

"So you'll take over Moody's position next year?" the other girl asked, she was petite and looked like she could have been related to Draco, with her blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and regal looking nose. But Drea was a lot nicer than Malfoy was, and her icy eyes were kind and inquisitive rather than nasty and mocking. Mark felt that she would have asked quite a few more questions over the last week had Moody even seemed half as approachable as Amy. In fact, he was the one who had asked the most questions, having dealt with Alastor enough in the past to have gotten used to his gruff personality, despite being the least talkative of the bunch.

"Oh no. Moody will continue on with your group through your three years as trainees, but a new group of a hundred will come in next year, and another one after that and they will need leaders for those groups too. I'll be helping out with one of them. Shaklebolt or Longbottom will also probably drop down to help out, as your group will have a lot less people by that time, and will need less Senior Aurors to keep you in line," she winked at them with that, and then pulled out a Portkey to transport them to their training grounds.

By lunch the green group as a whole liked Amy a lot less. They spent the hours before midday racing each other on an obstacle course. It was similar to the one they had raced against under fire last Tuesday, but with a few differences. It was bigger for one, so that all ten of them could race at the same time. It was longer too, with more of everything—ropes, rungs, walls, nets, water pools—but had a few added elements as well, such as a section covered in tires that they had to stumble across, tubes that looked like they were one engorgio spell away from belonging in a hamster cage, stairs that went up and down without any real purpose, among other things. They ran through them dozens of times while Amy sat in a conjured lounge chair on the sidelines with a pad and quill in her hand yelling encouragements, criticisms, advice, and occasionally shooting off mild curses at their heels for 'encouragement.' Once they finished she gave them all a talk about what needed to be improved, jotted down some notes and took a score. First place got one point, second got two points, third got three points, etc., and much like golf, the lowest scores were preferable.

By lunchtime, Mark was very bruised, irritable and third from last in the count. It wasn't his fault, not exactly, he just couldn't concentrate enough. He'd be doing fine and then he'd see red hair out of the corner of his eyes and whip around, expecting to see Ginny there before him. And then his boot would get stuck in the rim of a tire and he'd fall flat on his face and Amy's American voice would come from the direction of the red hair yelling about watching where he was going and such.

He grabbed his lunch and sat down in a mostly empty corner, and was joined a few minutes later by Drea and her friend Bailey—both from the green group as well. "Well, I hate to say it but I almost miss Mad-Eye," Bailey grumbled as Drea pushed her lunch away and just let her head hit the table. She began to rub her sore friend's back affectionately as Drea gave out a beaten moan.

"I definitely miss Moody," Mark responded, "at least with him I can concentrate. Gin—I mean Amy, has me so distracted," he swirled his spoon around in his soup a bit, kicking up a mellow steam from it and then took a bite out of his sandwich.

"I swear to Merlin, Evans, if you say one thing about her tits I'm moving to a different table. I mean, I like women as much as the next guy but if you're going to go on about them too I might as well be sitting at the twins' table," Bailey ranted at him, pointing her spork at him for emphasis.

"Wait, what, you like women?" Mark asked, taken by surprise. Drea lifted her head and gave the only boy at their table an incredulous look.

"No shit Sherlock," she said and leaned over and gave Bailey a soft peck on her lips, "You just realized? Haven't noticed the other seven monkeys in our group going on about how we should kiss more often? Haven't seen us kiss?"

"You're not a homophobe, are you?" Bailey cut in, "because we'll leave if that's the case as well. We've been dating for the last two years and we've already heard it all and aren't interested in hearing it again."

"No, no, as low of a opinion you two lovely ladies seem to have of me, I was not distracted by Amy's—er—assets, to the point where I couldn't notice where I was going and I am not a homophobe," Mark assured them and Bailey had the etiquette to look abashed and even apologized after her better half had given her a solid elbow in the ribs. A slightly awkward silence fell after that where they all took the opportunity to eat their lunch, while Mark wondered how Moody could have failed to split these two up into different groups. Now that he was looking at it they were obviously together, they sat too close to be just friends and would give each other looks from time to time that sent chills down his spine.

"So, are you gay too then?" Drea asked suddenly, breaking the silence. Mark looked up in shocked embarrassment and, before he had the chance to answer, Tonks came up and entered the conversation.

"Wait, Evans is gay? That explains a lot!" She said and plopped down on his other side.

"No! I'm not gay," he said, a little too forcefully by the look on Bailey's face, "not that there is anything wrong with people who are gay," he amended, "but I happen to like girls. You two will understand that. Tonks, I don't think you will."

"Are you sure?" Drea prodded, "I mean you weren't distracted by Amy's breasts and you haven't even asked us once to have a make-out session for your enjoyment. You're not a normal red-blooded male, whatever you are."

"It would also explain the hair," Bailey threw in.

"Thanks again for your vote of confidence, ladies, but I just happen to be a gentleman with good hair, and Amy just reminds me of someone I knew once," a pensive look took hold of his face, but it passed quickly enough as Tonks introduced herself to the other girls and the three of them combined forces to embarrass Mark as much as possible for the rest of lunch. They did this to the point where he was almost happy when the lunch bell sent them all back out to their respective leaders.

Once they were back to their training grounds, Amy set up twenty stations for working out, with things like bench press, hurdles, super stars, high knees, etc., and gave a number to each of the stations. Then she read off their scores from before lunch and told them they were to multiply their scores by the number at the station and that was how many reps they had to do for each. At first she weaved in and out of the stations to correct and help everyone with their workout to ensure that they were doing it correctly; but after the first three finished she took them aside and lead them in relaxing, if difficult, yoga exercises. As they all began to finish up they joined her with their basic yoga work. Mark was also fairly bad at yoga, but for different reasons, he seemed to have troubles relaxing enough to hold his stances. When the last person finished she took them through her stretches for another half an hour and then led them in a five mile run—led being the operative word here, as she could have easily lapped them quite a few times and often took the opportunity to circle around back and herd the lagers more towards the front of the group.

When they all finished up with that she checked her watch. "Well group, it's three o'clock and we've got another hour here. Who's hot sweaty and tired and done with this mindless workout for today?" The breathless, moaning response was far from enthusiastic but she took it, "Ok kids, take a hold of the Portkey 1. 2. 3!"

They swirled around in a nauseating way and all of them stumbled a bit when they landed making Mark not the only person who fell this time around. "Hey, this isn't the MTR," one of the twins pointed out. They had ended up in a different training ground, that was for sure, but it was a training ground none the less.

"Well, you lot didn't think I was going to let you out early, did ya?" Amy's wolfish grin was met with more groans, "Moody would chew me out for a week if I did that, and I don't like you guys enough to go through that for you. But don't worry; we're going to play a game. Everyone, transfigure yourselves some bathing suits!" she ordered, before turning her loose track pants and work out shirt into a brown bikini that had the twins whistling, despite their exhaustion, she laughed, winked and shrugged at the annoyed glare that Bailey shot at the boys. She then explained to everyone the game of Sharks and Minnows Pull Up, before diving in to start off as the shark. For the next hour they played a good 5 rounds that, despite their exhaustion, were more fun than the rest of their training had been so far.

Mark especially liked how young everyone looked; during most of the training they all have to act big and tough, here they all looked their age and took plenty of opportunities to splash and laugh and squirm around like the teenagers they were. He let himself get immersed in it, but found he couldn't fall into the roll like the others could. He still kept looking over his shoulder—there was never anything there, except a backboard in case of emergencies and a white deck with grass sprouting up between the cracks. But there could be something there and it could sneak up on them and slaughter all these kids before they knew what was happening, and Mark knew that better than anyone there, even better than Amy who was supposed to teach them how to be wary. They were in a war, after all, even if these children didn't realize it. The old chess masters were the only ones who had realized it as of yet; which was why Mark, an assassin at best, was so out of his depth.

After they all finished up and headed back the MTR they had to stay awake for another brief speech given by Moody. Mostly it was just him giving out the order for the meetings; green, red, orange, yellow, blue, violet, pink, white, black and brown. He then dismissed eighty-eight (two people had dropped out of the program since last week) of the trainees and six of the Junior Aurors, leaving the ten people in the green group, the two other senior Aurors and their present team leader, Amy, to follow him into the antechamber of a meeting room. All the leaders than went into the meeting room to either prepare or to let the nerves of the trainees get a head start on quivering before their talks actually began.

At first it seemed like Moody was asking them into the room in alphabetical order, starting with Andrea Anderson—Drea. She stood up, composed herself and went in. Kane tried to listen at the door, but was pulled back by his slightly more levelheaded twin. After a few minutes in which none of them spoke she came back out, looking even more pale than usual, almost as if she were a wax doll. Bailey started to go up to comfort her, much to the excitement of Kane and Patrick, but was quickly called into the meeting room herself, much to the disappointment of Kane, Patrick and Drea. The latter of which looked around the room for a moment, bit her lip uncomfortably, and then whispered to Mark to tell Bailey that she had gone home and apparated the hell out of there. Silence fell again, except for the breathing from the trainees.

When Moody skipped over the E's to go straight to the twins, whose last names were Farrell, Mark finally felt the nerves settling in. He was, in a way, horrified to realize that he felt almost as nervous as he did before the first task of the Tri-Wizard tournament all those years ago. It made him feel like a child again and he couldn't help but worry about being kicked out right then and there. Which was ridiculous, he was much better prepared to be an Auror than any of these other teenagers in his group, he was probably better qualified than any of the trainees in any of the color groups, he probably even had an edge on most, if not all, the leaders who were training them. He stared up to where the ceiling and the wall met and judged the paint job that spilled some of the walls yellow color onto the white ceiling.

After another lifetime, Alastor called him into the meeting room. The rest of the trainees had all ready left and there had even been a pause between when they sent the last person home, Sam Thatcher, and when the called his name where Mark felt like they had perhaps just forgot about him and that if he was quiet about it he could apparate home and avoid the meeting all together. But then Moody had fixed his mad eye on him and said his name and he followed him into the room. It was a cozy enough room, with a big desk that Mark sat in front of and Moody, Alice and Shaklebolt sat behind with Amy lounging against the wall off to the side. The walls were maroon and if Mark let the hold his metamorphmagus abilities had on his eyesight just a bit, the world blurred enough that he could pretend he was in the Gryffindor common room.

"Sorry it took so long to get to you, Pretty Boy, but we felt as if this might take a bit more time and we didn't want the other trainees to have to wait this long." Mark nodded but didn't say anything. His fists clenched and unclenched beneath the table nervously. Both of Moody's eyes were staring straight at him and he looked down, knowing full well that he knew basic Legilimency.

"We know that there is something about you, it is evident in the way you hold yourself, the way you walk, the way you are constantly checking behind you and the way you place yourself in groups so that if someone were to attack that you'd have good positioning that says you've fought before and you were good at it. Whatever it is that made you like this at such a young age is not in your folder which is curious to say the least," Moody paused, Mark kept looking down and refused to meet anyone's eyes, "But that is beside the point. What is the point is that you will become a good Auror, even if you are a bit rough around the edges right now. However, we have some concerns,

"One is that you are constantly up early and you obviously do not get enough sleep. When you do get sleep you have nightmares, and don't try to deny it Pretty Boy, I know that your episode in the hospital was not just a one time thing. Two is that you are haunted, which was evident today and definitely effects your performance from time to time, which we cannot have. What you showed Amy today was far from what she should have seen. Both of these concerns have led us to a decision, have you ever tried Occlumency before?"

Flashbacks to Snape's lessons in the dungeons filled his head and he snapped his attention upwards, "Occlumency?"

"Yes, have you heard of it?" Alice put in.

Mark looked back down, "Yes. A professor tried to teach it to me once before. It didn't work out to well."

Even though Mark was still looking down he could hear Moody's frown in his voice, "Well, Amy will be available to teach it to you over the next few months or so."

"But then she'd have to use Legilimency on me, right?" he asked.

"Yes, to help you build up your mental shields and teach you to control your thoughts." Amy said.

"Even though she's only a Junior Auror, Amy is the best person we have in our division for Legilimency and Occlumency, and you won't find a better teacher," Shaklebolt added and Mark looked up briefly enough to see Amy blush at the praise. She looked even more like Ginny than ever like that; her red hair was wavy after being taken out of her messy buns and her freckles faded into what looked like a typical Weasley blush. She looked gorgeous like that, relaxed against the wall in a comfortable way. Mark averted his eyes.

"Thanks, Shack. And Mark, I'll be as respectful as I can with your mind and memories, I know it can be a hard thing to let someone do, but all of us can see how this is eating you from the inside out."

"Amy also has a muggle psyconogy," Shaklebolt began.

"Psychology," Amy corrected with a roll of her eyes.

"Yes, that's what I said. She has a muggle psychology degree as well, so she's very good at working in these sort of situations."

There was a pause and everyone looked at Mark expectantly. "So you lot want me to see a shrink?" His temper was beginning to flare up a bit, so he was a little messed up but these chaps were setting him out like he was bonkers. He felt like he was back at the Dursleys, hearing them tell their neighbors about what a stand up family they were to take care of poor, demented Harry, and how many problems he caused and how they had to send him to a special school for young criminals, or some such nonsense.

"No, Mark, that's not what Kingsley meant by pointing out my psych degree. Alls he was saying is that I have a little more finesse."

"Well I'm happy for you that you have _finesse_ in _these sorts of situations_, but do tell me, what exactly these sorts of situations are." Mark was getting angrier; he hated being treated like a child. He had been through shit that would turn their hair white.

"Calm down, Pretty Boy. They didn't mean anything by it and none of us think you're too crazy or else we'd have you in St. Mungo's," Moody cut in with a grumbling tone that brooked no argument or petulant retort, "We just know that you have some stuff to deal with and we want to give you the tools to deal with it in a healthy way."

Mark had always liked the way Moody talked, it was plain and equal. He would talk the same way to a child as he would to an adult, or a celebrity or a common person, it calmed him down almost instantly. "Sorry," Mark said, "about my outburst and about what I'm going to say now. Knowing Occlumency would be great, but I can't accept your offer to be taught it."

"Why not, Pretty Boy."

Mark thought briefly to all the memories he had and how the majority of them took place in the future, "I just can't."

"We understand that it would be difficult to let someone else in your mind to witness your memories but it's for the best," Alice said.

"Yeah," Shaklebolt jumped in and Mark began to feel like he was being ganged up on, "We said earlier that you have a lot of potential to become a great Auror, we don't want to see that potential squandered because you are too distracted by these issues."

"I understand that," Mark said calmly, "I just can't. I can't explain why either, it's just too complicated. If you lot want to give me some books on the subject I'd gladly read them and try to learn it myself, but I can't have one of you teach it to me."

Silence fell again and Mark looked down and began to fidget in his seat uncomfortably beneath all the stares, "I will get you some books, Pretty Boy, and you will take some yoga lessons with Amy."

"Yoga?"

"Yes, yoga. Did I stutter? Relaxation is the first step to learning Occlumency, and you strike me as the sort who will have some trouble with that. So if we can't help you with the actual process of Occlumency then we can help you get started. You'll start tomorrow after training. It will last an hour and will continue until I say it stops, understood?"

"Yes sir."

"Good boy, now go home, eat dinner, take a shower, do whatever it is you do. We'll see you in the morning." Mark got up, nodded to each of them and apparated out.

* * *

**AN:** Well, there's chapter three folks. Next chapter someone(s) will find out who Mark really is, guess who and update plenty so you can figure out for sure even faster! Information about when things will be updated will noted in my profile so check there. Leave questions, comments and errors you can find in reviews so I can answer, appreciate and fix them respectfully. Peace Out. 


	5. Chapters 4 & 5

IMPORTANT AN! YaY and update! Sorry this took so long to get out, there are reasons but I'm really too tired of typing to give them. It also took a lot longer to get to where I wanted to go then I thought; more then twice as long if you want to get technical. I haven't really done too much editing with this chapter so it's still a little rough, but I figured I ought to get it out to you guys, revised or not. That means that I'll go back and edit it this weekend when I should have time again and I'll break this huge chunk into two different chapters so it's more manageable and isn't one random 13tho word chapter in a sea of 6.5tho word chapters. This means that Saturday you'll probably get a little email or message or whatever fanfiction does telling you that there's a new chapter up, there won't be, I'll just be splitting this chapter in two. This is still in a sort of fluid stage so if you see any glaring mistakes or want something changed drop a line at the end. Peace.

The last few weeks had been rough in a way that made sandpaper look soft as silk, even for him. This was a real shame mostly because things had just started to look up a bit. Still, because he was used to things going to hell at the least opportune moment, he could pinpoint exactly when it started to happen. It had happened when Mark accepted the dinner invitation to Alice's house. Sure, it had seemed like a good idea at first, sort of like going to the Weasley's for dinner—good food and worrying mother figure—except with less red hair, less kids and no Ginny. Looking forward to it was what got him through the rest of that weeks training and, worse yet, yoga with Amy. However, he hadn't counted on Remus being at the dinner.

Mark felt uncomfortable from the moment he got there. Frank, who Harry had known as a nice guy who always greeted him with a sad sort of smile, kept his face stoic when introduced and shook his hand in a grip that could only be meant to intimidate. Then he stepped aside and Remus Lupin, the man who was going to go on to teach him in his Third Year, love his godfather and die for him against the wrath of Bellatrix Black, or would do that if the world made a little more sense, nodded politely with a pensive look on his face. Mark hadn't seen him look this young in years, but still he looked worn and exhausted Alice pushed herself to the forefront at that point and gave him a hug hello, which earned him another glare from Frank. He bent down and whispered something that Mark couldn't discern into his wife's ear that pulled the smile right off her face. She whispered something back, with her hands placed firmly on her hips. He frowned but nodded tersely.

It got more awkward from there as Alice went into the kitchen to finish getting dinner ready, leaving the "boys to get familiar." They did no such thing as Remus sat off to the side watching Mark, sniffing the air occasionally, while Frank stared silently at him for a good five minutes while the youngest of the three shifted his weight from foot to foot. Finally Frank broke the silence, "I don't know what you're playing at here boy, but Alice is my wife."

"Frank"—Remus tried breaking in, but was silenced by a few sharp words from him.  
Mark looked up in confusion that suggested a suspicion of what was going on but the inability to believe it, "I know that, that's why you share the same last name." He regretted the joke as soon as he made it. The scowl lines across Frank's forehead darkened a shade.

"Oh, a funny boy, are we? Well, I don't want you doing any funny business with my wife! Is that understood?"

"What?" Mark yelped, shocked at the accusation, "Are you kidding? She's way too old for me," he blurted out, and then regretted that too. In this time Alice was not too old for him, not in the friends-with-my-mum way that she was the first time around. Actually, now that Frank had planted the idea in his head, she only had a few years on him and was quite a gorgeous thing to look at—curvy with a confidence that was dead sexy. Nice legs too. He shook that idea from his head.

"Oh, are you saying she isn't good enough for you, Stud?" he said _stud_ like it was an insult and began to take threatening steps towards him. Remus tried to mediate things a bit and stepped in between them and placed his hands on Frank's chest to stop him.

"Don't make an arse out of yourself, Frank," he said calmly. They exchanged a few heated words and then Frank stomped away to cool off and look for Neville, leaving Remus and Mark in a room tense enough to drown a small child.

"Sorry about Frank, he doesn't mean it. It's just hard on him, loosing all that time and Alice works so much. He just needs some space to adjust," Remus apologized for him.

"Don't we all," he muttered under his breath.

"Excuse me, I missed that."

"Oh, it was nothing." They stood in another awkward silence for a bit and Mark once again began to shuffle his weight between his two feet.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" Remus asked stepping towards him and smelling the air again. For the first time Mark considered the very real possibility that the werewolf could sniff him out. That chance was remote, of course, as the last time he had seen Harry had been when he was a baby and Mark was as different from that child as water was from fire, with over seventeen years of separation to keep them apart. Still, he didn't want anything of him to remind the man of that infant or questions might start getting asked and suspicions raised. When you get down to it the last people that Mark needed feeling suspicious way were three past and future order members, one of his Senior Leaders and one of his Senior Leader's jealous husband.

"Er, I don't believe we have."

"You just remind me of someone I once knew. An old school friend, perhaps."

"Do I now?" Mark couldn't tell if it was his imagination or not, but years later he'd swear that Remus began mouthing the name James.

"Yes, I just can't really put my finger on it."

Mark chuckled nervously, looked around as if he almost hoped Frank would burst in and punch him, if only to serve as a distraction. Failing that, he came up with an excuse to get away, "Um, do you know where the loo is? I'm about to burst?"

Remus regarded him carefully for another moment or two before pointing him through an oak door. Mark quickly ducked through it and found his way into the kitchen. It smelled wonderful in there, which made this task that much harder to do. "Alice, there you are," He greeted the woman at the stove enthusiastically.

"Hey Mark. Dinner will be ready soon," she brushed him off and continued to make the final touches on the meal.

"Yes, well it looks great and all but I really have to go. I'm not feeling all that well, it just came down all of a sudden and I figured I ought to get home."

The woman turned around with a concerned look on her face and, with Frank's warning fresh in his mind, he couldn't help but notice just how gorgeous she was, which made him more nervous and sweaty then he had been previously. "You do look a little flushed," she reached a hand up and laid the back of it against his forehead and cheeks, "You feel a little warm too, are you sure you should be traveling?"

"I'll make it home fine," he promised.

"Are you sure? You can lie down in a spare bed if you want and I can bring you some food up later."

"No, that I think I'd feel a little uncomfortable sleeping in my Boss's house," he fibbed.

"It wouldn't be that different from being over here for dinner," she frowned in thought, "Unless… My husband isn't barraging you with his jealous prattle, is he?"

Mark took one look at her now furious face and decided this was one marital spat that he did not want to find himself in the middle of, "No ma'am. Nothing of the sort."

"Then what is it Mark? You've got me really worried," she took his chin in her small hand and looked him in the face and he found himself chanting in his head over and over again, _please just let me go._ "It's not Remus, is it? He may be a little shy but he's a sweetie at heart."

And with that Mark saw his way out, an awful shred of light that may have come from the sun or glow of angels, but probably came from the fires a little further south instead. He swallowed his pride and his reputation in Alice's eyes and said, "Well, I didn't want to say anything but Remus makes me uncomfortable. He keeps looking at me like a piece of meat and sniffing the air like some sort of werewolf or something." Alice's face was appropriately shocked and she had risen her hand to cover her mouth, which had dropped open in an "o" shape before she realized that she shouldn't have reacted to that. "Merlin, he isn't one, is he?"

"Nn-o," She stuttered out and then blushed and looked down. Much like Neville, she wasn't too good at lying

He play-acted the rest of this out. Making a big deal about being in the same area as Remus and seeming like an elitist, were-o-phobe. Then he stormed around to meet the hurt eyes of the werewolf himself, who ducked his head, blushed and made Mark feel like a right wanker before saying, "It's alright. I'm sorry. I'll go."

"It is nothing to apologize about," Alice said firmly and walked over to his side in an obvious display of allegiance on this topic, "And I insist you stay."

"Fine! If that's how you want it then I'll go," Mark ranted and then left the house. The only good thing about that dinner, he decided, was that he was not there for the rest of it.

On Monday the following week she kicked him out of the weight room for the first time rather than staying and talking to him. He left and went to the cafeteria for a rather early breakfast, and did not return for the rest of the week. The Junior Auror they had this week was better than Amy only in the facts that he was a male with sandy brown hair. Other than that, he seemed content to order them to do stuff and then ignore them for the remainder of the day.

On Wednesday he even brought a few quiditch and Play Wizard magazines and let almost everyone in the group grab an edition and relax. It drove Mark crazy. What was he playing at, after all? They all needed their training, one day not to far off they'd all count on it to survive, whether or not the made it to the ranks of the Auror. And here he was treating them like they were in a locker room after a big game, or seventh years between classes. Mark lost what little respect he still had for him that day and ignored his orders for the most part after that. Bailey and Drea worked out with him in the beginning for a bit, but soon got tired and figured if no one else was working out then why should they and they joined the rest of the Green Team. Only Mark finished out his workout.

Yoga after practice continued as usual, it was the low point of Mark's day. After all, he only really liked stuff if he was good at it or if he could see that he was improving, and he was not good at sitting still and calming down in any stretch of the imagination, even if you squinted real hard. Any time he got close to relaxing and clearing his mind and all that rubbish images from his past would slip in and his body would go rigid and Amy would have to shake him out of it. She'd do this by getting really close, smelling really good (even after a full day's workout; how she managed this he'll never know), and looking far too much like Ginny before shaking his shoulders and snapping him back to reality. The images he saw were getting progressively worse. He tried to focus on positive ones, using what he had learned when Remus taught him the patronus charm to control his thoughts, but they'd always warp away and someone would end up dying again. He had cried into Amy, twice; it was embarrassing.

By Thursday, his temper, which had always been set a little too close to the boiling point, won out and he went off on her. He could hear Bellatrix laughing, cold and cruel like a prison, and see her over Sirius' body and the words of the Pain Curse were beginning to form on his lips when she shook him out of it. All the anger was still there and Amy was too. He saw her with her look of concern and her ginger hair falling in angles from her temple to her lips and hated her for not being Ginny. "I don't get why we're still bloody working on this, I'm not going to get it," he snapped at her.

Amy, to her credit, didn't just snap back. She leaned back onto the balls of her feet to give him some space. She had heard about his surprising temper from Alice, who still had not fully forgiven him for his actions and her resulting embarrassment, and gave him a few seconds to compose himself. "You're holding back, Mr. Evans, that's why you're not improving satisfactorily."

"I am not holding back," he hissed, scared for almost a second that he had slipped into parsaltongue, and stood up threateningly. He was sick of this and he was still so angry. He shouldn't be wasting his time like this he should be training to stop that bitch from killing him again. A little bit of calmness from Amy would have rubbed off on him and they could have saved this from escalating, but if there was one universal truth about redheads, it as their temper.

"Don't contradict me. You are most certainly holding back and if I'm spending my free time her trying to teach you this, you could at least give it your all," she scolded him, which was probably a mistake

"Well if you don't want to be here and I most definitely would rather be someplace else then how about I do us both a favor and leave," he said decisively and, without waiting for an answer or a reason to hex her superior, apparated back into his flat. There he stormed around a bit before throwing on some clean clothes and leaving. He found his way into a muggle pub and did something he never had the luxury of doing in his old life, he drank in public.

After Mark's temper tantrum Amy also apparated back to her flat in Muggle London. It was a small thing that she shared with two woman; one who was regularly there and was once there when she wasn't supposed to be and witnessed Amy practicing some magic and thus learned the basics of her flat-mate's life and one who was never there, had no idea about magic and generally used the room as a front for her parents to see while she spent most of her time at her boyfriend's place. Amy and the first woman, Sarah, were really good friends and thus Sarah knew that she needed a hug the moment she appeared in the living room.

"Rough day?"

"You've no idea. You know that boy I've been working extra hours with?"

"The dreamy one with dark eyes?" she asked slyly.

"No, my subordinate, who is at least four or five years my junior, with a troubled past," Amy corrected crossly. Ever since she had described him in detail to her hormonally charged roommate, a sin she got by being two years younger, she had been convinced that she was harboring secret love feelings for the boy.

"That's what I said," she replied before going into the kitchen and pulling some leftovers from the fridge to heat up.

"Well he lost his temper today and just took off. I don't know what to do with him. On one hand he has such potential and he can be such a good guy and the way he acts you just need to reach out to him, but on the other hand it appears that he's a bratty elitist who's running from something and he can't escape it on his own."

Sarah didn't answer to this directly, just let her roommate brood a bit while she finished up prepping the meal and set it down on the table before them. "Do you know what I think you should do about all this?"

"What?" Amy asked through a forkful of friend rice.

"Come out with me tonight," she pleaded and Amy rolled her eyes in response, "What? You can't tell me that you don't need to unwind a bit. If you're worried about being unprofessional call this Mark character up, invite him to go with us and God knows that this will help him to relax. Maybe you could even sleep with him, I can only imagine that that would help both of you out. He sounds like he could use a good shag and I can't even remember the last time you brought a boy home. It's really a fool proof plan!"

"We've been over this, Sarah, even though you have tomorrow off, I don't and even though you can sleep around a bit, I need a boyfriend for a good month before I'm willing to give it up and I don't have the time for one right now."

"Ouch. Let's put things into perspective. One, I've never had a one night stand with a boy; it just hasn't been almost a year since I've had a relationship. And I'm not saying you have to be a whore, I'm just saying one good night will do you worlds of good. You can call in sick tomorrow, just have some fun tonight."  
"Sarah, I can't. Look, I'll find time this weekend and we'll do something though, I promise."

"All right," she gave in, though she still looked a little downcast, "But I get to pick what we do on Saturday, Ok?"

"Within reason. Now, I'm going to go and take a bubble bath. You have fun seducing guys tonight. Be careful."

"I will," her flat mate promised in a sing-song voice as she skipped her way into her room to get ready, "You don't know what you're missing."

Sarah hummed for a bit as she put on a skirt and a blouse that she left enough buttons undone so that you could see some skin but not enough that you could see her bra, she wasn't asking for the kind of riff-raff that that style encouraged. She heard her flat mate's computer starting up—a muggle device that she prided herself on getting Amy into—and poked her head out of the window to see what she was up to. "So much for a bubble bath. What you up to?"

"I'm just seeing if I can find any information on this Mark kid outside of the magical world quickly. According to his file after his parents as a kid he spent most of his time in the muggle world, only getting tutoring and stuff in my world, until he turned seventeen when he went to some remote school in South England to take his NEWTS but then the school burned down the year after. Sounds suspicious, yeah?" Amy answered from the other room. In most cases, Sarah, a muggle police officer, could understand where she was coming from, but here even she was thinking that this was going too far.

"Look, sweetie, I think that you should go out with me tonight. You're getting a little obsessed over this kid who, despite being gorgeous, frankly seems a little incompetent and churlish from your descriptions of him. It's Carol's birthday, there'll be drinks and plenty of rich, male friends of her lawyer-boyfriend to buy them."

"Who's Carol again?" Amy asked in the voice of someone who was only halfway paying attention, much like a student in math class.

Sarah gave an exasperated huff, "Our other roommate, for chrissakes."

"Oh yeah. Honestly I haven't had a single meaningful conversation beyond 'if my mum calls, tell her I'm out at the grocery store and she can call me on my mobile.'" She used her best fake British accent for Carol's part and they both snorted a bit, "And honestly, as an Auror, I'm not sure how comfortable I am about lying for her. Have you had a meaningful conversation with her?"

"Sure, I think it went, 'I'm turning twenty tonight, would you like to meet me and some mates at that pub down the street.' I believe she mentioned that you were invited as well."

"Hm, I'll have to pass this time. I can swing tomorrow or Saturday night though. I promise."

"I'm holding you to that, missy."

Sarah sighed and finished getting ready and then waited until Amy turned off her computer to take her relaxing bath before heading out. She thought she knew best for her friend, but in this case she was probably mistaken. Because, when you get down to it, even though Amy was overworked and obsessing over Mark a bit, it was probably for the best that she didn't go out with Sarah that night. Who knows how she would have reacted to arriving at the pub and seeing the object of her attention belting out a song not yet written on the Karaoke stage, well past just a little tipsy.

He then went on to immerse himself into the birthday party of fifteen or so girls with fifteen or so boys and somehow became the life of the party. Using genes he did not know he had inherited from his father he charmed all of them their, using memory skills he learned as a general in gorilla warfare he called each and every one of them by name and with the body gained in intense training he wooed them all. He took the stage seven times that night, and each time he did he drew in more crowds from the street and ensured another round was being bought from the bar. He was wearing comfortable jeans, a black button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a blonde-haired miniskirt on one arm. She had a name, he was sure; he just couldn't muster the will to care what it was. It was the best time he could remember having in quite a while.

Mark pulled her onto the dance floor and pulled her close to him, much to the envy of the other miniskirts and tank-tops at the pub, and she asked what his name was. "Harry Potter, of course. Everyone knows that and yet no one does, so let's keep that between the two of us, eh?" They started to kiss and they rocked slowly to the music. _She looks a bit like Fleur_, he decided, _Exotic somehow, and beautiful and powerful in a way that men should fear._ But Mark found that he wasn't afraid of this woman, which might have been the alcohol coursing in his bloodstream. He found he wasn't afraid of a lot of things he usually was this night. He could have left his wands at home and still felt comfortable. He let himself be eighteen and wild and didn't glance over his shoulder every time he sensed someone new behind him.

"I'm going out for a smoke, want to come?" she whispered into his ear and he nodded and followed him. They leaned side by side against the wall of the pub and she offered him a cigarette as well. He accepted it, far be it for him to turn down anything offered to him by the hot older woman, especially with that much beer in him. He took in a drag and coughed out a gray cloud.

"First time?" she asked and he nodded. "Shit, you should put that thing out then. Horrible habit, you should get rid of it before you can't."

"No, I'm fine," Mark replied with a cocky smile.

"Of course you are lad," she said and laughed. It was infectious so that they were soon both doubling over on the street corner in front of a Karaoke pub. She showed him a few tricks, and how to hold it right, and tried to get him to imitate her smoke rings but he couldn't quite get a hold of the shape. They laughed some more and she glanced back into the pub to see the place in full swing with out them before grabbing Mark by the hand and bringing her back to her place. They snuck in like adolescents coming home after curfew and she hushed him repeatedly for being too loud because she didn't want him to wake her roommate. Then they tumbled into her bed. Mark remembered that it was soft; it had been awhile since he had the luxury of a soft bed, not since back when he was in Hogwarts. And he remembered no more.

Around eleven Amy had gone to bed in the vain hope that a good nights rest would lead to some miraculous insight that would solve the mystery that was Mark Evans. Her and a few of the other Aurors in charge of the training program had begun to gossip about him. There was something in him that was deeply driven and there was something delicate about the way he moved that was cat-like, with his muscles always tensed as if he was always prepared to attack. And there was definitely something missing from his innocent profile that was far too thin and ambiguous to be removed as often as it was from the steel filing cabinet in the Auror Trainer's lounge. But, alas, nothing new showed itself and no new insight suddenly lit up the room when the radio flickered on and Amy awoke, groggy and in desperate need of a coffee—something she partially blamed on her roommates drunken return at about one in the morning, and her decently noisy behavior that followed which made Amy sure that Sarah was not sleeping alone. She seriously needed to cast some silencing wards on her room.

Amy rolled off the bed, literally, and fell onto all fours before shaking herself off and managing to get up onto two feet. She walked in a zombie-like trance into the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker and then walked back through her room towards the bathroom to take a quick shower. When she heard a bing from the other room telling her the coffee was ready she washed and dried off and threw on some cotton panties, a sports bra and a wife beater and went back into the kitchen. She glanced around to make sure her flatmate's new love interest wasn't watching before pulling her wand from her holster and using it to dry her hair and make breakfast begin to prepare itself—eggs over easy and generously buttered toast. She then finished making her coffee by hand, being able so sit over it with the heady aroma washing over her was relaxing. She spooned in a good amount of sugar before sipping it with a contented hum—dark as night and sweet as sin, just the way she liked it.

She levitated her now finished breakfast to her and munched on her toast thoughtfully. _I wonder if I should peek into her room just to make sure she's okay,_ a devilish thought crossed her mind and it took quite an exercise of will to squash it. No, she would not allow curiosity to drive her to peeping in on her friend and her lover, regardless of whether or not she wanted to know who was brought home. _Maybe it's her boyfriend. Sure they broke up two weeks ago but I know Sarah's still been pining over him. Maybe they patched things up. Damn, I'll just have to wait until after work. Maybe I can get out of teaching Evans yoga today, I'll just use his temper tantrum from yesterday as an excuse. _

She cleaned off her bowls slowly and then slipped into some comfortable basketball shorts and her Junior Auror t-shirt and apparated off to work. Without an interruption, the two occupants in the room slept almost till noon.

"Shame dogs don't go to heaven, isn't it Potter?" Bellatrix's voice rang through the chamber. They were in a basement dungeon. He pulled against the chains in anger. "Ah ah ah," she mocked in a condescending tone, "Temper, temper." She cast a curse on him and held it as he withered in pain for a few moments, "Thought you could fool us, did you, Wittle Hawwy. We figured you out fairly quickly though. Only here for a week, weren't you?" Harry held his tongue. He had been using his metamorph abilities to find out information on Voldemort's plans by allowing himself to get recruited and then taking up new guises throughout the ranks. He had been there for more than a week though. It was almost three months yesterday, when he was caught. Now he just needed Bellatrix to get bored so he could escape. She didn't leave though; she went into a corner and pulled forward a chest. Inside something was thumping and knocking around. She unlatched it and stepped back; the bogart within it took one staggering step towards Harry and transformed, taking on the dark and shattering form of a dementor. The world was beginning to turn cold and he could hear screams: his mum and Ginny were there and they were dying.

He burst upright in bed and took a few shaky breaths. Something swirled uncomfortably in his stomach and something warm begin to creep up his throat like a snake. He bolted out of bed, found the loo and emptied his stomach. The blonde-haired miniskirt found him there, she had put some boxers and a shirt on but he was still buck naked and kneeling before a toilet. She whispered comforting words and pulled his long and messy hair back from his forehead. The throw up stopped coming after a few minutes and he stood up. Sarah took him in, seeing him completely sober for the first time. He was a bit shorter than she was used to, standing at only 5'8'', and definitely wasn't the tan Australian that she had previously dated and had yet to get over, but he had nice arms and beautiful eyes under a shock of dark bed-head-hair. He looked different from yesterday, she decided, she couldn't quite remember how. She gave him a noticeable and approving once-over and he blushed softly. "Err, hello."

She smiled and moved out of the way so he could find some clothes. He pulled on his jeans and was about to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt when he caught his refection in the mirror over the dresser, he did not look like Mark Evans. "Shit." He looked like Harry Potter. The girl called from the other room saying that she was making breakfast if he wanted any. He rushed out of the room towards the kitchen, buttoning his jeans as he went. "Do you know who I am?" he demanded, one hand behind his back as if ready to draw his wand.

"Yes, of course," she said brightly from where she was, on her tip toes trying to reach a box of something in one of the upper cupboards. Then her posture drooped and she turned around.

"You don't remember my name do you?" she asked softly. If possible, Harry's eyes widened even more, _oh shit, but we didn't do it, did we?_ He raked his brain and found he could barely remember what happened at the bar and whatever went on after that was just beyond his reach, like a word on the tip of his tongue.

He cleared his throat, "We didn't, you know, do it last night, did we?"

The girl dropped into a chair at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands, "I never thought I'd be the girl who'd do this. Of course we shagged last night. Don't you remember any of it?" With a growing sense of horror, he realized the girl was crying. She looked up at him with wet eyes and he used the small bits of Legilimency he had picked up to figure out her name.

"Sarah, do you remember my name?"

"Of course I do," she snapped, "It's Harry Potter."

"In that case I'm very sorry," his hands clasped on the wand he wore on his back and he flipped it out to the front with a spell on his lips before she could blink. "Obliviate." He wiped her memory of the last few hours and apparated back home to his flat. It was 11:45. He was so late. And she still had his favorite pair of boxers. _Shit._

He threw on his training outfit and brushed his teeth quickly before changing his appearance back to that of Mark Evans and apparating directly to the field. John, the idiot in charge of their group for this week, greeted him by saying, "Hey, look who finally decided to show. Party too much last night, lad? Moody is so going to have your arse for this one."

Mark, the perfect picture of control, went right over to the man and lent down to whisper into his ear, "If you tell Moody about this, I will tell him about how you've been running practices. We'll see who gets in trouble then, eh?"

The older man's lips drew into a tight line and a blush crept up his neck before he nodded tersely. He was not going to get in trouble for this pipsqueak, with an attitude like that the boy would wash out eventually all by himself. He then brought the team together in the middle and apparated back to the MTR so they could disperse for lunch. Bailey, Drea and Tonks tried to corner him but he told them shortly that he was not in the mood to explain. He still felt so guilty and he barely ate even though he was hungry. She didn't deserve that and he, in his mind, was still engaged to Ginny. He felt sick to his stomach.

He was hard-pressed to believe it could possibly get any worse. After all, he only needed to make it through the rest of today and then he could catch Pettigrew at platform 9 3/4, and he'd feel like he was accomplishing something, but then Amy canceled yoga practice on him for a phone call.

They had started off the practice with him apologizing for loosing his temper the last time and she had, grudgingly, accepted his apology. The mats had just been laid out when she heard her cell phone ring, a muggle device that had also been introduced to her by Sarah. She checked the ID and excused herself from Mark for a second. She stepped a few feet away and turned her back but her could still easily hear her half of the conversation.

"Hey Sarah," Mark's ears picked up at the name, "What's wrong?" concern entered her voice, "Ok, breathe, just tell me what you remember, babe." She paused for a while, nodding her head occasionally. "And that's all?" Another pause. "Look, I didn't mean it that way." She tilted her head and listened some more, "I'm sorry, it just came out wrong. Let's focus here. You had a one night stand and all you know that happened is that you woke up in the middle of the kitchen with the boy's boxers on?" It was a good thing that Amy was looking away because all the color drained from Mark's face at this point. "Look, don't worry. I'll be there right away."

She turned and looked over at Mark with an apologetic glance; he was looking down and picking at an imaginary bit of fluff on his t-shirt. "I'm sorry, that was my roommate. I've got to go. Sounds to me like some dick used her and then slipped her something. Oh, and we won't have it on Monday either, it's supposed to be a surprise but there's going to be a small dueling competition for anyone who is interested and I'm definitely giving it a go. I expect you'll try it out too. See ya then, kid," she said and was gone with a crack. Mark let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, _oh shit. _He shook his head piteously, went home and distracted himself by finishing up some pretty intense wards around his study. After he was certain they were more secure than the cells of Azkaban he went to sleep, too exhausted to even think anymore.

For the first time in a long time it was the alarm that woke him up, not the nightmares, and it left him feeling better rested then he had in a while. He got up and put on some non descript clothes—just some basic jeans and a basic t-shirt with nothing that would be memorable in any way. Then his stomach told him it was time to eat a hearty breakfast, preferably of pancakes and bacon, which he listened to obediently. He then stood before the privy and brushed his teeth while working on his look, he made himself to like a fourteen year old of average height, with brown colored hair in a basic hairstyle, with basic brown eyes to match, and an average skin-tone to with an average speckling of acne to bring his look all together. In the end, he looked like someone who if described would fit the profile of almost half of the boys at Hogwarts, easily. After he checked his reflection and the whereabouts of his wand for the hundredth time he apparated to a deserted side street that shot off of Diagon Alley.

His watch said he still had plenty of time so he ambled calmly towards the animal store and purchased a small cage and some rat feed before heading back home. He put the little animal cell in his study on the desk and warded it securely with impenetrable and unbreakable charms to keep whatever was locked inside there at all costs. He smirked to himself; it wasn't a pleasant smile and it briefly turned his perfectly engineered, non-descript face into something very memorable indeed. Then a terrific crack sounded in the apartment and it was empty once more.

His figure leaned against the wall on the magical side of platform 9 ¾, while he watched the students go to and fro. They looked some peaceful and bold and happy; most importantly happy, even the proud parents who were saying goodbye to their children. He checked his watch one more; it was just about time. There—the first redhead went through, shortly followed by a whole handful more as well as one scrawny little boy with messy black hair. His breath caught in his throat when he saw her, tugging at her mum's pants and begging to please be allowed to go as well. He swallowed, twice, and subtly cast a summoning charm on the rat. "Accio." As soon as it reached his hands a quick, "Stupify," rendered him unconscious and Peter Pettigrew knew no more.

The plan had been to leave immediately, with his crack melding with those of other parents, but he found himself unwittingly following the younger Harry Potter. _So innocent. Was I really ever like this?_ He wanted to tell him to turn around, to save himself the pain of it all, but he couldn't find his voice. _How hard would it be, after all? I could just grab them and put there somewhere safe. Sirius's house should still be unoccupied. I could just lock them up there and they'd never have to die._ But he knew this was impossible, besides the first few years were happy at least and it wasn't his place to take those away from them. They were precious. He lost Harry in the crowd and soon found Hermione, all snotty and uptight like she had been when they had first met, my God were they about to become good friends. She kissed her parents goodbye and bounded onto the train. He saw Ron there, being teased by the twins and smiled softly. Ginny was milling about, dejectedly staying a bit away from her parents. He went behind her and said quickly, so that she would not have a chance to turn around and see who it was, "Be safe, my dear. I'll always love you but I have to say goodbye." When she had spun to face where he had been standing, he was already gone. She chalked it up to her imagination.

When he returned home he let his guise fall off and soon he was just Harry standing there, stunned and unsure whether he should laugh or cry. Instead he buried the emotions and got to work, locking Wormtail up in his little cell. If it were possible, there would have been little dementors making sure he regretted what he had done. He changed back into Mark Evens, fixing the lie to his face, and went to the library at the Ministry of Magic. There had to be no doubt in his mind that if Pettigrew arrived on Fudge's doorsteps then he wouldn't just disappear—Merlin knows how bad the publicity would be if a man was convicted with barely a trial and had rotted in Azkaban for ten years for something which he had not done. Especially if related to a matter as public as the Boy Who Lived. Mark was of the opinion that that humbling experience would only do good things for the minister and the wizarding populace as a whole. Thus he remained buried under books for the rest of the weekend.

By the time Monday rolled around Mark was more than ready to dig himself out from under the pile of documents where he had been hiding for the last two days. He welcomed a return to routine even if Alice was put in charge of their group and was still noticeably upset with him. Letting her work him so hard practically put him into a good mood and even she had to grudgingly commend his work by the lunchtime.

The rest of the day went just as smoothly and soon they were all in rank listening to another of Moody's talks. He saw Amy sneak in through the side and tensed for a moment, remembering Sarah, until she winked at him when she caught his eye, unknowingly ensuring him that she had not figured out that he was the one to mess with her friend and was not here for the sole purpose of murdering him. His focus returned to Moody, who was explaining to everyone that anyone who wanted to stay could participate in a dueling tournament and the winner would have the rest of the week off. Mark smiled in a way devoid of warmth—now this could be fun.

About half of the recruits took a number, while the other half decided they were far too sore to take a beating in front of half the program and apparated out. The same held true for the Junior Aurors, who either jockeyed with their students for a better place in line or decided going out for a bite to eat with their friends would be preferable. Shakelbolt had erected a desk to set organize the names and numbers of the competitors while Moody stood off to the side, transfiguring matchboxes into raised platforms for the fights. Alice found her way to the healer where Mark correctly assumed they were discussing potions stock and such in anticipation of injuries.

He took a number and wrote his name and group color down before ambling off to find Tonks, who had also decided to stay. "Where's Drea and Bailey?" he asked he upon finding her standing off by herself.

"The lezzies? They already ditched out. It's their anniversary tonight. Good to see you here."  
"Well, someone's got to win this competition, figured I'd offer my help."

Tonks smiled maliciously, "Oh, I can't wait to wipe that smirk off your face, pretty boy."

"Whatever you say, my dear Nymphadora. I'll look forward to seeing you in the ring. What number did you get?"  
"I got one near the beginning, thirteen, and I'll make you rue the day you learned my name one you get there."

"Well then don't let someone knock you out early, I got one of the last one's, sixty." Tonks groaned in annoyance and then dragged him off to stand around the arena as the first fights got started. Within a few minutes bets started getting made and, as soon as Mark realized he could easily pick out who would be the winner and who would be the loser in almost all cases, he began to make some decent money off of the games. The early fights went rather quickly, with a noticeable difference in skill levels between most of the fighters. Tonks, Mark was glad to see, was definitely one of the better ones, and had a good defeat against some hot-shot boy who didn't want to fight with her at first on grounds that she was a girl. Moody yelled some sense into him and she drove that message home by first toying with him and then crushing him in the match. Alice had to hurry on stage and suspend the fighting for a bit so that he could receive some medical attention. Tonks just beamed.

Mark soon had a victory under his belt as well. Tonks lost her first match in the third round to one of the Junior Aurors without facing Mark, who went into the fourth round by beating one of the four competing Junior Aurors; some man who stormed off under the laughter and jeers of the other members of the teaching staff. In that round there were only eight remaining competitors, three of which were the other Aurors. Mark had a sneaking suspicion that Moody was organizing it so that they didn't play each other and knocked out as many trainees as possible, which was confirmed when their assignments pitted all of them against the four other trainees who were still in the competition. Moody and Shakelbolt talked for a moment or two before removing the second stage and focusing the attention all on one fight at a time.

The crowd was still pretty big, most of the contenders who had lost were good enough sports to stick around and cheer on their favorites they had bet on to win, and some other Aurors had come in from the dinning hall to check out the competition. Mark and another trainee, some brutish looking boy from the yellow group—who just had to have some giant blood in him to get to that size—squared off with him. He was good; Mark would give him that. But as a general in the war he would yell at his recruits for acting just as this man was acting now, cocky and impatiently.

Mark danced around him with ease, toying with him and using more defensive spells than he had used in any previous match and dodging even more spells to egg him on. In most cases, Mark would have dispatched him quickly, but he had time and space now so there was no point in being hasty and possibly making a mistake, especially not when he was enjoying himself. It was working too; the brute had expected an easy win against the much smaller Mark, and was getting annoyed as he kept squirming out of his range of fire with an impish grin upon his face. Mark waited for his opponent to make a mistake and he was not disappointed. As soon as that opportunity arose he hit him roughly with a powerfully disarming charm that sent him flying off the stage with his wand clattering to the ground where his body had been.

The crowd erupted with applause or groans, depending on which side of the bet people had been on. Mark saw Tonks collecting a considerable handful of coins from some boys around her and she smirked at him when he caught her eyes. He took a bow and stepped down to join her for the rest of the fights. "Well, I didn't get a chance to beat you, but I did make a considerable amount of money off of ya, so I guess it's alright," she smirked at him and bopped her hips into his, "How about I treat you to dinner with this later on?"

"Sounds like a plan, but I doubt you could've taken me in the ring. I own that arena," he said cockily, expecting a witty comeback from her companion who was sporting green hair to show her support.

"Yeah, I suppose you're probably right. You're really good a dueling you know, where'd you pick it up?" Mark was surprised by her suddenly serious question and looked down at her surprised. He was saved from having to answer though when the next duel began and the crowd broke out into cheers and jeers once more.

The rest of the fights ended with the Aurors pumping the air with their fists in victory—or something a little more subtle—and with the trainees stunned or blown completely off the field, making Mark the only one to progress to the next stage. His fight was first and he was paired off against Amy for it.

They both bowed to each other, neither taking their eyes off of their opponent, and Amy shot him a cocky grin, "Ready to have some fun, Evans?"

Her comment was met with silence from Mark who had risen from his bow and stood stock-still waiting for her to make the first move. She began to weave back and forth, and he followed her with his eyes. She feigned an attack and he didn't even flinch. Amy smiled wider, this was going to be good, and the battle truly began.

The whole thing lasted a good twenty minutes and they were both pouring with sweat by the end of it. Amy got tired quicker; she hadn't expected to have to stand up to such a powerful barrage of curses that Mark had sent her way. They were so quick and varied, with the majority of them being sent nonverbally so she was never sure what she was getting attacked with or which shield spell would defend it best. And by Merlin were his spells strong; even with the shields she threw up shimmering brightly every hit felt like a physical blow and she was sure she'd be bruised tomorrow. He was good a defense too; quick enough to dodge most of the spells that didn't weave to hit him or weren't wide in their coverage, and he was good at casting spells or even transfiguring the field itself to build physical walls.

Amy was good as well, better than Moody, Mark knew. He had, after all, trained a good deal with Alastor in the future and knew he could beat him the majority of the time in less than five minutes. Where in America Amy had learned her stuff, he was unsure, but he couldn't quite figure out why she'd want to transfer to an obviously inferior program in Britain. Still, she was slowing down. All he had to do was be patient and wait for a mistake. It wasn't too long before she made one and stumbled a bit on the now-uneven ground. He struck sending a curse that caused wooden objects, like a wand, to burn as if they were on fire; not to mention it could pack quite a punch if executed correctly, and had some other nasty side effects that you could never really control. Hermione had invented it, or would some day. The green curse went flying towards Amy and for a second he saw Ginny again; he eyes open wide and scared, knowing the killing curse was coming and knowing there was no way to stop it. Beaten and bruised, his fiancée had died. He apparated behind Amy and pulled her out of his own curses path. Time ran out and it hit him instead, sending him flying off the stage, over the crowd and into the table they had used to sign everyone up. It collapsed under him. The silence was broken by a ripple of whispers that broke out through the crowd and the sound of Alice's shoes as they hit the ground.

"I've got a pulse, Merlin what just happened there?" Alice shouted towards Moody as the healer hurried over with potions to help her. Amy had gotten down from the stage and had forced her way through the crowd to the boy as well. The other Aurors got to work getting the trainees out.

"Jesus. That wasn't the killing curse, was it?" Amy asked softly.

"No, it flew different. Besides, he'd be dead. It's called the killing curse for a reason," Alice responded, "Whatever it was, it was powerful."

"Yeah. It was. Sure looked like the killing curse too," Amy muttered and was then pushed out of the way as the healing spells began.

It took an hour's worth of healing spells before he could be moved into the infirmary. It wouldn't have taken so long but his body seemed to have developed a strong tolerance to healing magic and didn't take to it as quickly as it should have. The fall snapped quite a few bones and the spell that had hit him stuck to him and battled against the foreign magic, despite many finite incantatems to try to disable it. Eventually they had to call in a curse breaker to pick it apart.

After another hour, Mark blinked back into consciousness. Amy was standing over him, "Mum?" he asked softly, squinting blearily at her. A smile lit up her face at seeing him awake and she didn't even bother to try to correct him.

"Hey. I need you to take these potions, ok?" she helped prop him up and then brought a bottle to his lips. He turned his face away.

"Is Ginny alright?"

"Who sweetie?" she asked. The healer and Alice had come back in but both kept their distance, not wanting to overwhelm him.

"Ginny," he repeated and began to struggle to get out of bed, "Where is she? Did I save her this time?"  
Hands gently pushed him back to the bed and Amy soothed him, "She's fine. She's just resting. She wants you to get better." He calmed down at this and when the potions were offered to him again he took them.

It was another hour before he woke up again. Moody had left, Amy had fallen asleep with her head on his bed and Alice stood to the side giving him a look he couldn't quite read. His movements woke up Amy who's groan brought the healer bustling in.

"There you are, Mr. Evans, how are you feeling?"  
"I feel like I was run over by a hippogriff. I guess I didn't win the match?" he replied, his voice sounding raspy and unlike his own.

"No. You would have. But you apparated behind your opponent and pulled her out of your fire, getting hit yourself in the process. I daresay Moody was ready to let you die for that one. Either that or put his own head through a wall. Now I'm going to run some tests and let you go," she said briskly and began to do just that. A couple of spells glowed about him in different colors; he was used to this by now and could even read a bit of what had happened; broken ribs, concussion, popped a lung again, etc. It seemed like he had taken quite the hit. Finally he was released and the women left the infirmary so that he could dress himself in privacy after he discovered, with not a small amount of horror, that they had had to remove his shirt and pants to treat him properly.

Finally he made it downstairs to the apparation point. Alice and Amy were both waiting for him. "Amy," said the former, in a tone that meant she was pulling rank, "If you'd like to talk wit Evans would you wait in the other room for him. I'd like to have a few words with him first." The younger woman bit her lip as if she was about to argue but then ducked her head and headed out into the hallway.

"Interesting spell you used there, Mr. Evans. Mind telling me what it was?"

"Um, it's like the flagrante curse, but rather than focusing it on an object you focus it on the person and then wood burns them so they can't hold their wand anymore."

"I've never heard of it before," she said, her arms were crossed over her chest and her legs were shoulder width apart in a slightly hostile stance, she looked as if she was confidently playing with fire.

"Yeah. Someone I met at my school invented it. She never worked out all the kinks exactly, that's why it was working against the healing magic."  
"It took an advanced curse breaker to crack it; that's some pretty complex magic for a school kid to be making up."

Mark shrugged, "She was a smart girl. Is that all?"

Alice met his gaze coolly and just stared him down for a moment or two until he broke contact, "Yes," she said and turned around to walk away, "Oh, by the way," she paused her walk and cocked her head back in his direction, "That's a nice ring, where'd you get it?"

"I'm not wearing a ring," his hands fanned out in front of him as proof.

"The one around your neck," she specified, "Where'd you get it?"

They stood gazing at each other again; this time he broke his eyes away much quicker and dropped them to the floor while a hand rose to cover the small bump in his shirt that showed evidence of the piece of jewelry. His weight shifted from foot to foot, "Nowhere."

Alice remained there a moment longer before nodding and turning away once more, "I'll send Amy in. Goodnight, Mark."

"'Night."

Amy strode in and went right up to him a moment later with a worried look on her face, "She didn't chew you out, did she?"

Mark's eyebrows drew together in though,_ I don't think I was 'chewed out,' I'm not really sure what happened exactly; it was rather weird though, wasn't it?_ "No, she just had a few, random questions to ask."

"Good. I have some of those myself, as it happens. What happened out there? You were about to win and all of a sudden you pull me out of the way and get yourself blasted to kingdom come!"

Amy asked loudly, throwing her hands around in wild gesticulations and then had to keep from going _awww_ in an embarrassing way when he ducked his head and blushed before mumbling out, "You just remind me of someone I once knew and I didn't want to see you get hurt." She smiled softly.

"Thanks kid, now you ought to get home and get some rest. You look like hell," she bent in and gave him a peck on the cheek before apparating away, whilst muttering something about crazy brits. Mark decided to take her advice.

Alice had apparated away as well, after her talk with Mark, but she did not go home like the other two, she went to Moody's house instead. A couple of knocks resonated throughout his house and Moody drew his wand and fixed his mad-eye on the door. "Who discovered the potion that brought you and your husband back from insanity," his gruff voice broke through the door.

Alice rolled her eyes at his antics, "For Merlin's sake Alastor, you don't have to be so damn paranoid all the time."

"Answer the question, lass."

"We don't know and before tonight I was supposed to answer that it is believed to be Swiss Wizards, who lead in the field, but now I'm willing to bet it has something to do with young Mark Evans."

There was a short pause where Moody digested the implications of what she had said, then the wards began to drop from the front door and the telltale clicks said that the locks were opening. The door pulled away and Moody's silhouette appeared dark against the lights in the background and he said, "Why don't you come in then and tell me what you know," she entered his house and then he added as an after thought, "You really ought to ask me a question as well, Longbottom. Never know when there might be an imposter in my place."

"Be reasonable, Alastor, what are the chances of that happening."

In another part of England, Mark Evans was sinking into his bubble bath with a moan. His bathroom was littered with bloody bandages that had been wrapped around his chest, but he found that he hardly cared about the mess. There'd be time to clean it up later. Right now all he wanted to do was relax, he never had had enough time to relax. Something always came up, but nothing was going to come up now. He ignored the stings from his still-healing cuts and sunk deeper into the water. He closed his eyes and let the tension melt away.

He thought about Ginny and Sarah; it was easier to do it now, exhausted, relaxed and tanked up on potions that dulled the painful memories to boot. How long had it been since he had seen her? Jesus, was it over a year already, he hadn't even remembered the anniversary. Would she be mad about Sarah? Probably, he figured, but that was his fiery little redhead for you. She'd probably only be really mad about how he treated the poor girl, not as mad as Hermione would be though—Merlin, she'd probably castrate him for being so callous. The thought made him wince, but the tautness quickly dripped away once more. _They'd want me to be celebrating their lives by being happy, and I'll try to do that for them. I'll make sure they get a better life too, this time around._ He smiled at the thought before drifting off to sleep amongst the bubbles.

His wand woke him by buzzing against his forearm. It took a few moments for him to shake off the feelings of sleep and realize where he was. Someone was trying to get in; that's what that alarm meant. He tensed up and slipped quietly out of the tub, before toweling off and slipping back into his pair of boxers. There wasn't enough time to bother with anything else. He snuck into his kitchen, which was separated from his living room—and thus his door—by a low counter that would offer decent coverage. He placed a hand against the outside wall and tapped into the wards he had put up; they were falling, fast. Either there was someone out there who was damn good at what he did or there were multiple people out there preparing to storm in. Merlin he wished he wasn't just wearing his underwear. He cast a night vision spell on his eyes.

Within a minute the wards blocking strangers from entering completely crashed and the handle slowly began to rotate. _Hm, I thought I was better at my wards than this_. Two figures slunk in, following the light of a single wand. He couldn't see faces, but their stance suggested an air of experience. Mark cast the first spell, loudly and verbally, as was necessary to get the force behind it that would close out all the lights in the apartment, "Nox."

The scuffle that followed was as unorganized as it was brief. Without visibility, the two intruders were quickly taken down, only affording them a single hit against Mark that was barely more than a lucky shot that was fired in the direction of his attacks. Still, it left a new cut streaming open on his left bicep. When it was over, Mark cast the lights back on and surveyed the damage. Two figures lay sprawled on his living room carpet, face down. They were both breathing, which was all he allowed himself to notice before he began to cast spells to stitch up his cut and bind the intruders. Too late, he heard the soft shuffle of a foot touching the ground behind him; and too late, he heard the intake of breath to start a spell.

"Stupify."

When he came to he was bound a blindfolded and lying on the floor of his living room. His hands were locked behind him, but his wand was gone, someone must have removed it somehow. He could hear one person rummaging about and another trying to work on the door to his study where Wormtail was. The third person was breathing right above him, obviously keeping an eye on him. "Look at this place. Not a damn personal item anywhere," he hear a voice muttering off to the side, he recognized it as Shakelbolt's.

"Still not sure about coming," a different voice intoned. It was more feminine—Alice's.

"No. He had you two down and Merlin only knows what he would have done with you had I not been there. How did the rookie get a jump on you in the first place?"  
Alice gave some indignant response and then a frustrated growl before taking her frustration out on Mark's guest room door by physically kicked it, something that sent her flying into the wall on the opposite end of the hall. The third person got up and rushed to her, hobbling along on a wooden leg. While he checked to try to make sure she was okay, Mark began to work on slipping out of the ropes holding his hands. If only he could get a hand out, he could retrieve his wand through some basic wandless magic. He scrunched up his face and dropped the size of his hand down as small as it would go before manipulating the ties as best he could.

"Stop right there, Mr. Evans," Alice's voice sounded from directly above him. He quickly scrunched his face up again to return his hand to normal size behind his back, no point in giving away what he was. "We're here to have a little chat with you."

"You're hear to have a chat with me? Not exactly the ideal way to go about it. Untie me and we'll talk."

"Not on your life, Pretty Boy," Moody intoned. He was also right before him. Someone leaned down and removed the blindfold and he blinked, disoriented for a moment by the lights, before focusing on the three intruders. "You're not who you say you are. That much is clear,"

"Says the man breaking into my house and assaulting me," scoffed Mark, trying to buy some time.

"Lying to the ministry, especially in order to get employment there and even more so in the legal branch of it, is a criminal offence," Kingsley interjected, "Now you can either tell us the truth or we can use other means to obtain it from you."

"This is ridiculous," Mark fumed, "On what grounds do you think I am lying?"

"Let's start with the spell you cased earlier. You said a friend from your school—the one that mysteriously burned down—invented it, but none of the teachers who we've contacted can remember a single student who would have the aptitude to create such a thing. Nor do they remember any one with the aptitude to create the spell that healed my husband and I, which has a remarkably similar makeup."

"The thing about spell work, which you may not be aware of, is that creating it is sort of like writing something or speaking. You have your own personal style, a sort of handwriting or voice, which can be picked out among thousands if you are good enough at that sort of thing." Kingsley interjected.

"Thank you Kingsley. Furthermore they found it laughable that we thought a student could come up with something like that. Also, not only could they not remember anyone with the aptitude to create such a spell none of them had any recollection of you. They had remnants of grades and records saved from the fire, but no personal memory. Which is also hard to believe seeing as everyone of the Aurors who have worked in Training for this session know your name." Alice finished up.

"So your breaking into my house, disturbing my wards and binding me on my living room floor because I know an impressive spell?" Mark asked

"Constant Vigilance, you've been suspicious from the start," Moody growled from off to the side and Evans had to resist rolling his eyes.

"Also, I personally would be very curious to learn how you got your hands on this," Alice said, leaning into Mark and around his neck to unclasp the chain holding the ring. For the first time since this whole ordeal started Mark felt a worrying slip in control.

"Give me that back," his voice was low and dangerous. "It's mine."

"Yes, I see that. But that's very interesting considering it used to be Lily Potters. I'd recognize it anywhere, being the first she showed it to."

Mark blanched. He hadn't known that. One day Nymphadora had given it to him, while he was looking for a ring to give to Ginny. She said she had been holding it for Sirius and that it was supposed to go to him when he was ready for it. Neither had known its history, but it was perfect anyways. Truly it was a shame that the Alice from his timeline hadn't been a bit more perceptive about that, or perhaps she had assumed that he had known.

"That's the ring I purposed to my fiancée with," he snapped, "I assume it's possible that the company who made it made more than one of them."

"It's a one of a kind Potter family heir loom, so I highly doubt that possibility," Alice said calmly, while dangling the ring around on the chain like a cat toy in a way that Mark felt was likely to get it lost. Mark felt his story faltering.

"I got it second-hand. I don't know who it belonged to before."

"This ring is supposed to be in the Potter Family Vault. There is no way it ended up in some flea market or some such nonsense. For the last time, tell us the truth!"

"Give me back my bloody ring! It's special."

"You're damn right it's special!" Alice was loosing her control as well, "It was the ring that bound my best mates to each other and I'll not have you tampering with that connection they had." At this point Kingsley stepped in and pulled Alice away to let her compose herself while Moody shook his head sadly and withdrew a vial holding some sort of clear liquid: the truth serum.

"We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way, Evans. If you're telling the truth you've got nothing to worry about," Moody said gruffly, taking a menacing step towards him. Mark surveyed his options as best he could.

"Fuck you," he growled.

"Have it your way," he said and cast a spell forcing his mouth open. "Now then, let's begin with the questions. Harry felt as if his consciousness had been stripped from his body and sat in the corner of the room as an observer. "Is your name Mark Evans?"

On some level Harry felt himself wince, as his body stoically answered, "No."

"Have you knowingly deceived myself and the other's at the ministry of magic?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever worked with organized crime?"

Harry almost winced at that too. He had worked for Voldemort, technically and briefly, so that he could obtain information for the war. "Yes," his body answered.

"Do you regret doing this?"

"No."

"Have you ever cast an unforgivable?"

This was going to be very hard to explain, once he had the body in which to attempt to do so. He had very well cast unforgivables, against some of Voldemort's top generals, namely Bellatrix. "Yes."

"Do you regret doing this?"

_Not on your life, that bitch deserved it_. "No."

"Was this Lilly Potter's ring?"

"Yes."

"Did you steal it?"

"No."

Moody paused in his questioning and turned to the other two who stood off to the side. "Any other questions you want to ask the lad?"

The two looked at each other, Alice had tears in her eyes and Shacklebolt had draped an arm around her to offer comfort. "What about that other room?" he asked, "The one that we can't open. Ask if there's something in there."

"We can only ask yes or no questions, Kingsley," the eldest of the three growled in annoyance at his still-green recruits.

"Well, just ask if there's something dark in there or something," he replied with an almost sheepish grin. Harry could have groaned; Wormtail definitely qualified as something dark. This was not going to look good for him at all.

"Is there something dark or dangerous in the locked room?"

"Yes."

Alastor sighed heavily and administered the antidote. "Anything you'd like to say, lad?"

Mark looked around, none of the faces looked particularly friendly or even neutral in a way that said he wasn't about to be sent off to Azkaban. He decided he would have to choose the lesser of the two evils, "I know this looks bad, but I can explain. I just need a Wizard's Oath from all of you not to breath a word of it out of this room."

"Yes, I'm sure it would be rather convenient for you if none of could speak a word about all this incriminating evidence, eh?"

"That's not what I want. It's just difficult and I can't have something like this leaked to the _Daily Prophet_ or the public by some other means."

"Don't even consider it, Moody," Alice jumped in.

"I wasn't about to, Longbottom," he assured her and Mark felt his stomach sink a little bit deeper towards his feet.

"Good, because I doubt he can give us even one good reason why we shouldn't haul his arse before the council right now and have him convicted for actions against the Ministry," she snapped decisively.

Mark was grasping at straws now. He sure as hell hadn't gone through all of this just to be sent to rot in prison. "Aren't you curious about the spell that saved your life?" There was a tone of desperation in his words now that the three Aurors noticed right away.

"Extremely, but not enough that I'd barter your life for the satisfaction of knowing the truth. I'll figure out your alternative motive later on." Alice was crying again and gripping her friend's ring like it was a lifeline. Poor Lily, she was going to see this bastard put in jail for working with people like the ones that killed her and then having the audacity to wear her ring around his sinful neck like a charm. She cast a silencing spell at him and he flipped himself around barely missing it. He knew he had only one more chance left, if that.

"Peter Pettigrew! I can give you Peter Pettigrew!" Kingsley had to hold Alice back as she lunged at him, forgoing magic in a fit of passion and a torrent of emotions.

"Boy, you're playing with fire here," Moody warned, fingering his own wand himself.

"Just listen to me," he pleaded, "and think about it. Sirius Black was like James' brother. They were as close as could be, right? The obvious pick to be the secret keeper. Don't you think someone realized it was too obvious?" Alice was bawling now into Kingsley's shoulder, who was awkwardly patting her back trying to be as comforting as he could. Her muffled sobs could just barely be discerned as pleas for Moody to silence him.

Moody paused, "Kingsley, bring her into the other room. Boy, you have two minutes."

"The conviction was a scam, you remember it. The court read his charges, had some witnesses give a few testimonies and then they threw him into Azkaban without letting him plead his case. Everyone was practically high over the fall of Voldemort"—Alastor shuddered—"that they felt invincible like they could do no wrong. It was one of Madam Bone's first cases that she oversaw and her sister was just murdered, leaving Susan in her custody. She was stressed and angry and took it out on him. The old minister was just killed and Fudge wanted this big case to go well to give him some good publicity for his first act. A year later she filed for a retrial but the minister thought that it would look bad and vetoed that move."

The brows on Moody's forehead knitted together, the boy was making sense, even if he didn't want to admit it. "Still there was the street blown up, muggles and all, leaving only Sirius standing. How do you account for that? And where would Pettigrew have been hiding all these years?"

"Are you aware of Remus' _furry little problem?_" Mark asked and was rewarded when Alastor's eyes widened in shock. Not only was he aware of it, he knew that was what they referred to it as from when he was part of the order, ten years prior. "It must have been hard on Remus, all those full moons. Luckily he had his three good friends to help him through that tough time in his life. In fact they even went as far as to offer the ultimate sign of solidarity, keeping him company."

"That's not possible; he would have ripped them into bloody little shreds."

"That's true. He would have done that in his werewolf form to any humans in the vicinity. But I never said they were humans." Mark couldn't help but pause for dramatic effect, and Moody made the motion that he should hurry up, "Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs. Those are some interesting nicknames. You've heard them refer to each other that way, I'm sure—you have—good. Moony was obviously an allusion to Remus' werewolf form, but what could the other names have mean?" Mark trailed off and looked at Alastor significantly. He furrowed his brow while he put the pieces together.

"Are you insinuating that they were animagus?" He asked, a small amount of doubt lacing his voice.

"Exactly. Padfoot is Sirius, the dog. Prongs is James, the stag. Finally, Wormtail is Pettigrew, the slimly little rat. They switched last minute, figuring that Remus was the leak because he was a 'dark creature' and that Sirius could lead them in the wrong direction because everyone would assume that he was the secret keeper; he was the obvious choice after all. No one would expect meek, little Peter to secretly work for the Dark Lord. But then again, he always was a mindless follower. That night, Sirius realized something was wrong, I don't know exactly how he was tipped off, but when he arrived at Godric's Hollow it was too late. Like I said, he was always a bit of a hot head and he charged off to chase down Pettigrew. Wormtail also knew something hadn't gone quite to plan that night and knew he had to disappear so when Sirius cornered him in the alley he spewed off some rubbish, set off an explosion, chopped off a single finger and disappeared down to the sewers. He's been living as a rat while Black has been rotting for ten years."

By this point Moody had sat down in a chair before Mark. His finger was still poised on his wand, ready to fire, but his other hand was stroking his stubble in thought. "So what do you hope to achieve by all this? I mean, it is an interesting theory but if you intend for me to now set you free so Shacklebolt, Longbottom and I go on a wild goose chase to track down a single rat from all the millions in the world, then you are sadly mistaken."

Mark grinned mischievously, "No. You promise you will see justice done and I hand you Peter Pettigrew. You then untie me and listen to my story. We'll move on from there."

"Very well. On my magic I swear that I will do everything in my power to ensure that Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black get fair trails should you deliver the former to me," Magic swirled around them in a powerful gust and then settled back down, "Now, according to your theory, where is Peter Pettigrew now?"

On the floor Marks grin grew a little bit wider, "Well, I have something dark and dangerous in the locked room."

Moody's smirk grew to match Mark's and he called the other two Aurors in. "Now, how do we get into this room.

"First you fix the wards on my apartment so we can be ensured that the bugger doesn't escape." Mark ordered. Kingsley and Alice looked at Alastor in shocked horror when he ordered them to do as he said, but they complied anyways. Mark cleared his throat, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." The click of a door unlocking followed this declaration.

Alastor, flanked by Kingsley went in and returned with a cage containing a cowering rat. Gently, he was removed from his cage and the spell was cast to force his transformation. Peter Pettigrew nervously looked from the three intimidating aurors to the very angry young man tied on the floor and swallowed the lump in his throat. Before Alice had a chance to get too emotional, Moody forced him to change back and placed him back in his cage. He then bent down to release Mark from the ropes. "I think it's time we talked, Pretty Boy."

"Fair enough. Let me just put the rat back." Moody nodded and then they all sat down around the kitchen table. The ring was placed on it as well, near the center, and he had had to restrain himself from simply reaching out and grabbing it. He didn't think that that was the best idea at this juncture in time. Alice was sobbing again, but it seemed like the emotions had exhausted her and her anger had ebbed away a bit. "I'll need a wizard's oath from all of you that what I am about to tell you remains confidential."

The three aurors looked at each other and nodded. They were all curious enough now to throw caution to the wind in order to figure this young man out. One by one they gave him their word and promised their magic to it.

"Let's start with your real name," Moody said, "We'll work from there."

"My name is Harry James Potter. I'm from roughly seven years in the future," he said and let his disguise slip.


	6. Chapter 6

The room he was brought to was obviously meant to for storage. There were shelves, closets and crates loitered around, but they seemed to have been cleared to the side leaving enough room in the middle for two couches that faced each other, separated by a small coffee table. Mark wondered what was stockpiled here and was seriously considering taking a peek when Amy came in. She had a box grasped in her hands and awkwardly adjusted it to get the door closed before setting it down at her feet. "Hey. Have a nice day off? Hope you're ready to get some work done today." She beamed at him and tucked a few strands of hair that had pulled out from her clip behind her ear.

She still didn't know who he was, and despite being here now Mark didn't intend to let her find out too much. Having Moody, Kingsly and Alice know was bad enough, and he had in fact told them everything. The whole night sort of blurred together, but one part stood out clearly.

"Mr. Potter, we recognize that you outlived us where you came from but do not let this belittle the experience we hold in your mind," Kingsly began, "The fact is that you are not ready to take the field of battle in the way you need to right now, in fact you are not even ready to take the field of battle in the position you held six months ago. Once more we must ask you to consider taking Occlumency lessons."

"With one of you?" Harry had asked hopefully, but that was not what they had intended.

"No," Moody responded, "With Amy. She is still the best able to help you deal with your problems and to teach you Occlumency."

"No," he had firmly refused. No way in hell. But he wasn't as used to getting his way as three Aurors with leverage over him were, and that didn't last long, and now he was standing before her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as he often did when he was nervous and unsure of what to do.

He hadn't wanted to go to her for help, not after the whole Sarah incident, technically not before it either. But he also didn't want to tell that reason to the three aurors bearing down on him. Reluctantly he agreed to give it a trial, a full day at the very least. He reserved the right to decide where to go from there. He could survive one day, after all he was Harry Potter. All he had to do was keep her from finding out about that particular infidelity and keep her from learning his real name.

Amy pulled a stone basin out from the box and set it in the middle of the coffee table and took a seat on the couch to the left, motioning for him to join her on the one across from her as she moved. He recognized the object as a pensive; there was already a memory floating around.

"All right Evans, Moody finally gave me the go ahead to have my way with you so grab my hand and lets get started." She reached her hand across the table. Each nail was tipped gently with white nail polish and she had a ring on one of her fingers, a subtle break in dress code. He grasped what she offered and she pulled him into the memory.

They were on a beach at night; it was just getting cool. In the distance he could see a small fire surrounded by shapes that he assumed were people. "I grew up in California," Amy said by explanation, "This was a beach we lived near."

"Oh," he responded, not really sure what to say but feeling like he ought to say something, "It's nice."

"Yes, and very basic and easy to access in my mind seeing as it involves so many of my other memories. Walk with me." Mark began hurried to catch up with Amy and walked a few more feet to her left than good manners would normally dictate. For her part, Amy did not seem to mind. "Ideally when someone barges into your mind you want to push them out of it. The same goes for when you are remembering something a little bit beyond your capacity to deal with at the moment; you want to force it from your conscious thought. But that is generally something only an extremely skilled occlums can manage. Much easier to master, and a step you can build off of eventually, is to 'find your happy place.'"

"My happy place?" Mark asked dubiously, wondering how this story had started to turn Disney on him.

"Yes. It doesn't have to actually be happy, per se, it can be neutral in tone as well. It mostly has to be simple and without secrets so when someone tries to force their way into your mind you can pull them into here and trap them more or less. It should come from your childhood as well, before you were seven, which gives it a simplistic air. When you get good at it you can keep this place on the surface of your mind at all times, which will help to keep you feeling less stress on a regular basis and will serve as all a person will be able to see in they try to read beyond your eyes. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"

"Yes. But how does this help me with dealing with my past?"

"Just learning to manage how to do this will put you in better control of your errant thoughts and will allow you to sort of set your mind back to default if they get to you if you wish. Grab my hand again, we'll go back to reality."

Soon enough they were in their living room styled storage space on the couches again. "So, Evans, do you have a good memory to use as a default?" She asked and Mark dipped his head down in contemplation. Amy gave him a few moments then gently began to prod him, "A lot of people use simple spaces like their childhood room, or a favorite vacation spot." Mark blushed lightly. No such spot would work for him. But they did give him a good idea for a different spot.

"Ok. I have one."

"Good. Concentrate on it and I'm going to enter your mind. I'm going to bring you with me—it's sort of hard to explain but you'll understand when I'm in your head. Is that all right?"

"Hold on," he said, stopping the spell on her lips, "What did Moody tell you about me?"

"He said that there were some things about you that will be surprising and impossible but I am to keep my cool and not ask too many questions. I'm just supposed to deal with the underlying psychological issues necessary to keep you from killing yourself with grief."

Mark paused for a second, fairly sure he wasn't comfortable with this and not at all prepared. "Ok. I'm ready."

Amy found herself pulling Mark into his memory of a small park. Weeds were pushing through the cracks in the pavement, graffiti spelled words too vulgar for the child's play structure they decorated and all but one of the swing seats were broken, with the wood dangling awkwardly from the chains. Mark took the one functioning swing for himself as she glanced around. "Will this work?" he asked shyly. She was about to ask if there was a happier place that he could think of but the embarrassed look on his face stopped her; it reminded her of the kid in school who never had the money for lunch. She paused for a second too long and Mark shifted his feet across the ground nervously, "I grew up not to far away from here with my relatives."

"It's fine, Mark. Really." The edges of the memory flickered, evidence of a struggle to hold onto it, which showed Amy, more so than anything else, how fragile his mind had become. A dark laughter replaced the monotone noise of cars in a suburb and the whole image flickered. Amy jolted across the gap between the two of them and grasped Marks hand. His face contorted as he tried to hold onto the park. The world folded up around them and even Amy couldn't pull them out of torrent of images.

A basement flooded by filled with instruments only meant to cause pain, something with the consistency that was almost like syrup slithered down her back. She lay nose-to-nose before a garden snake hissing at it curiously as the meaning of what they were saying echoed in the background,_ I'm Boy, what's your name?_ There was an impromptu graveyard on the edge of a patchwork house, mounds that had no time to grow grass bubbled around her and she could feel the blisters forming on her hand as she dug into the damp soil. There was a bar and a girl with a hiked up mini skirt that her hands had found their way underneath; teasingly she tickled with her fingers. Finally there was a small room with a cradle viewed in mostly black and white. She could see only two colors amidst the shades of gray; the red hair of a woman pleading for the life of her child and the green light that followed. It all went dark except for the white sound of a high-pitched crackling laugh. Amy wrenched herself from his mind, dragging Mark along with her. They both came out panting.

"I'm sorry," the boy across from her said so softly she thought she might of imagined it. She wasn't looking at him, or she could have noticed his appearance warp for the briefest of seconds before he buried his face in his hands and pulled his image together.

She waited a few more pregnant moments, "That was Sarah." The room stilled as the implications of what that meant. Psychological terms and theories swirled around in her head as she tried to figure out the mature and healthy thing to do. He nodded, barely, and Amy found that she no longer cared about the best course of action. "Is that how you get your jollies, you sick fuck? Twirl a girl around for a night and obliviate her come morning?" She shouted, raising from her seat and rounding the coffee table the two of them without any barrier between them. The boy in front of her didn't answer, didn't even move when she went to strike him, just jerked back as she connected and then lolled forwarded, pinching the bridge of his bleeding nose. "Answer me!"

"No. I didn't mean for it to happen like that."

"Fuck you. What exactly did you intend, then? Force yourself on a muggle like that is considered rape you know. For good reasons. How many other girls have you done this to?"

He looked up at her, shocked at the allegation, and she took advantage of that moment of eye contact to break back into his mind, to the night he lost his virginity to Ginny. They were in a dingy room in Grimauld Place. All the picture frames had been flipped face down and warded to give them privacy and candles floated about in a way that was intended to romanticize the evening, but cast deviant shadows on the furniture with rattling drawers and upon the peeling wall paper instead. It was the first time since being inducted to the order that Harry missed one of the meetings, but it was a first time for a lot of things that night. It was stumbling and awkward, as those moments usually are.

Amy had accidentally pulled Mark in as a presence again and they both stood while his memory filmed on, the participants unaware of the voyeurs. Mark, furious and embarrassed, did the only thing he could think of in such a situation; he tackled his superior, effectively bringing both of them back to reality where he tackled her again, shoving her down across a crate.

"That's private," he gritted out, his eyes shifting back and forth from green to black as he lost control to his emotions, his face contorted with strain. Amy flipped them around and wound up on top, trying to pin his arms up while hitting him at the same time in a way like she used to do with her older brothers, but much angrier and violent now. But he was much bigger physically and he quickly threw her off of him, dropped his shoulder and tackled her once more, landing them both on the couch. She kneed him in the crotch as they went down and used the moments he was dazed to push him to the side; he rolled from the couch, arms swinging wildly up to try to catch something as he went down and missing. His head, on the other hand, caught the corner of the table as he dropped, and the back of it landed solidly on the concrete floor. The pensive shuddered and fell upon him. The room spun and Mark knew no more.

When she heard the dull crack and the thud that followed her senses came back to her. "Jesus fucking Christ!" she cursed and shoved the coffee table out of the way so she could kneel by her charge. She checked the ABCs and let out the breath she had been holding when she realized he wasn't dead. A couple of charms ensured that he would stay stable for a few minutes, more or less. Then she bolted from the room in search of a more experienced healer, wondering how the fuck she was going to explain this one.

When Mark woke up he was back on the couch, this time with no one beneath him. Alice was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. He could hear Moody chastising Amy in the corner, her whole face, dipped low in shame, was flushed, as was her neck and chest that was visible before it disappeared beneath her shirt and. He could see his blood on her, as well as tear stains that did not belong to him. She let out a poorly stifled sob.

Alice softly asked how he was feeling in a tone he could not decipher, and he wobbled his hand back and forth like the deck of a boat in a storm to indicate so-so. Moody finished his tirade with Amy and she stalked out of the room without sparring him a glance and apparated away right outside the door. Alastor, in turn, rounded on him.

"What in the devil's name did you get yourself into this time, Pretty Boy?"

"Amy told you about Sarah then?" he asked quietly. The look Alice shot him, filled with disapproval, answered the question.

"It came up," was her terse response. "Just tell me what the hell were you thinking, Harry? Even if we put aside the obvious moral issues at hand, there still remains the fact that you practically raped the poor girl. Merlin, what would your mother say?"

He felt the bottom of his stomach twirl and drop away. "I didn't rape her. I was upset and I went to a pub and got drunk and I don't remember what happened next, I just know I woke up naked in her apartment feeling really sick. My disguise must have fallen sometime during the night because I looked like I'm supposed to, like Harry Potter, and she remembered all of that and knew my name. I couldn't let her know that."

There was a moment when no one spoke and the only movemen't came from Moody's eye as it swirled sickeningly and wildly in its socket, "Hmf. I can't believe I'm saying this but it's probably better that way," Moody gruffly put in.

"Alastor! How can you say that?" Alice looked up shocked, "I can't imagine what that poor girl must be going through."

"Regardless of what it is she's safer not knowing, especially since she has had other contact with the magical world through Amy. Besides, if he blacked out and she didn't he must have been much more drunk than the girl, technically she took advantage of him."

"Still, it just seems so callous," she said softly.

"What do you want the boy to do? Apologize to the girl?"

"I already did," Harry injected, earning incredulous glances from both Moody and Alice, "Not as Harry Potter, obviously, but there's nothing wrong with Mark doing so, we are technically the same person."

"I'm racking my brain but I can't think of any way you could have managed that without causing more problems."

"Well, she knows about magic from Amy, so I found a way to meet up with her as she was coming home from work yesterday—"

"Great, now we're going to have to deal with stalking charges," Moody interrupted. Alice quickly hushed him and motioned for Mark to go on.

"—On my day off and explained that I was a wizard, I got drunk, I told her something it was dangerous for her to know on accident and I had to erase that knowledge from her mind. I don't think she quite knew how to take it, just walked around me and went inside."

Alice leaned back after this revelation, resting her weight on her palms behind her hips and Moody pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damn it, Pretty Boy, it is too early in the week to be dealing with all this. Are you sure she doesn't know anything serious? Good. Just be more careful in the future, for Merlin's sake," he paused and sucked in a big lungful of breath that he let drift back out slowly, "your expected back her tomorrow, as is Amy. My suggestion is that you tell her the truth about it all as you two are expected to work together. Who knows, perhaps having to deal with you all the time will teach her how to control her own damn temper," he finished, obviously putting strain on his own anger in turn. Then he simply spun on his heel and strode from the room. More slowly, Alice got up to follow him.

"You've probably had enough for the day. Go home and get some rest, Harry."

Mark watched her go for a bit, still firmly planted on the couch, scared and embarrassed to do what he knew he ought to do, but as she was just about to cross the threshold he bolted up and stopped her. "I'm sorry I've disappointed you so much since I got here," he said shyly.

She stopped and took a steadying breath, "Harry, you should be—and I know you are—ashamed for what you did to Sarah, but that was only one mistake. You haven't had an easy life and I know that both of your parents would be proud of the man you've become despite that incident. Talk to Amy, work with her, and get better. Get some rest until then. You're going to be all right, we all are," she said and then angled his head down with her hands so she could give him a motherly kiss on his forehead. Mark smiled softly.

Amy apparated to just inside her apartment and slid down the door to her haunches and wondered how she let things get so far out of control—my god she had given the boy a concussion and knocked him out cold. A head peaked out from behind her roommate's door.

"Hey there, what are you doing back here so early?" Sarah asked, coming over and crouching down by her friend.

"Could ask the same of you," words were finally understandable through the girls sobs.

"Just thinking some things over, you know. Ran into the boy I slept with when I came home late last night from work. He apologized and explained some stuff. Just mulling it all over, you know?"

"You ran into Evans?" she asked, incredulous.

"You figured out it was him then, eh? I told him I wouldn't say anything. He looks up to you I think, or something," she smiled with a rueful shake of her head and pulled her friend up and dragged her into her bed. They were both exhausted. "You look like hell. Do I need to get us ice cream and a trashy romance novel or is the plan to just crash?"

"Oh no, you don't get off the hook that easily. What did Evans say?"

"He waited for me, and introduced himself when I came in, mentioned that he was one of your sort. Said he had to apologize for the other night, that both got really drunk and fooled around and he blacked out. In the morning he realized he had let something wizardly slip that he couldn't have other people know and so he erased my memory. He honestly looked awful about it. I still haven't forgiving him for it, or myself for that matter, but it's good to know what happened."

"What did he let slip? That he was a sex fiend," snapped Amy grumpily.

"Well obviously I have no idea. When he assured me that he had no STDs I just went inside and that was the end of it. How'd you find out?"

"It came out when I was doing some special work with him. I beat the fuck out of him for it too." Silence fell and neither one knew what to say for a couple of awkward moments, the sort of moments where suddenly you find bits of lint and threads that dangle from the frayed edges of your shirt quite fascinating. "Chick flick then?"

"Now you're talking! Go get changed first, you look disgusting."

The atmosphere was much less friendly and cheery when Amy and Mark met up the next day. They both sat opposite each other, edgier than the couches dictated as fitting. No word was spoken for a good five minutes; Amy stared at Mark and Mark studied his worn chucks, both waiting for the other to decide how to approach the other. In the end Mark acted first, slipping one hand behind his back and the other to his forearm to draw his wands from his holsters and he carefully, so as to not appear threatening, set them on the table with the tips pointed in his direction. His back settled against the back of the couch. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions," he stated, almost needlessly. His companion's head dipped up and down in agreement. He fumbled a bit with the bottom button of his shirt, nervously. "You can ask them now if you want, and I'll do my best to answer them. Moody told you everything said here is to remain confidential, right?" There again he was answered with a barely perceivable nod of her head, a slight dip that set her ponytail swaying ever so slightly.

He went back to waiting, and when his patience was finally rewarded it was not the sort of question he expected at all. "Who were the people you were watching?"

A dark blush crept up his neck and face, staining him. "I beg your pardon."

"In the memory, before you tackled me. Who was that couple?"

"That was my fiancée and I. And honestly, it was a very private moment and I don't think—" she cut him off.

"No it wasn't. That man looked nothing like you. Who the hell were you watching fuck?"

If possible his face turned an even darker shade, rivaling the deep, cherry-juice color of the rug at his feet. "Er, right. Here's where it gets complicated. I'm a metamorphagus. Mark Evans is my disguise."

"A metamorphagus?" There was an obvious tone of disbelief in her voice. "Like that other trainee, Tonks?"

"Yes. She's actually the one who figured out I was one; I hadn't picked up on the signs. Then she showed me the ropes afterwards." A pause followed this statement as Amy thought over what the trainee in front of her was saying.

"I was under the impression that you didn't know anyone when you entered this program."

"Well, see, that's not entirely the case. I know quite a few of them, it's just that they have no clue who I am." A perfectly defined eyebrow arched over one of Amy's blue eyes. "I'm not making much sense, am I?"

"No, not really. As far as I can discern you're still a dick."

"Er, right. Let me explain. Are you familiar with Morgana's law on time?"

"No, not really."

"Bullocks, I was hoping you did because I don't know enough about it to explain it properly. Basically it states that time is rigid and tends to follow a singular path regardless of what you do. The time turner was based off of this theory as it followed that any short jaunt into the past was predetermined and was meant to make the present possible, a conundrum of course but one that persisted for decades without any noticeable flaws. However the time turner was later improved into a form capable of breaking that path and thus allowing a traveler to change the past and create a new future."

"Nothing like that exists, Evans."

"Of course not, not now, but just shy of a decade down the road there exists a variance of reality where it will be created."

"That's quite a story to believe. But say for a moment that I do, what circumstances would ever exist that would send anyone hurdling years into an uncertain path?"

"The return of Voldemort and his victories that cast him as the supreme figurehead of the wizarding world."

"And who are you in all of this? The genius who stumbled upon this innovative invention?"

"No. She was…She was murdered. Hermione was murdered. I am Harry Potter, Commander in Chief of Dumbledor's Army, or I was before they were all killed, when there still was one. Right now I'm not quite qualified for anything, I believe that that is where you are supposed to fit in."

His heart was pounding in his head; he counted the number of beats it gave, pulling blood in and pushing it out in turn, while Amy sat across from him simply staring. He was in the hundreds when she reacted; standing up jerkily she opened the door, turned as if she was going to say something, thought better of it and left. His breath made a whooshing noise and it left his mouth.

There was a spell once, or there would be in a year roughly—the Weasley twins had invented it whilst they were supposed to be doing something else in a class—that allowed you to see your breath as if you had been smoking or were out in chilly weather. They had used it to blow smoke rings while holding rolled up pieces of parchment between their fingers. It had nearly given McGonagal a heart attack when she first saw them, thinking they had smuggled in muggle weed or cigarettes, and they found it hilarious when she, greatly flustered, was unable to give them a detention when their innocence was proven. Amy gave him the same sort of look when she came back in a few moments later, almost annoyed that her perceptions were wrong.

"I think it would be easier for now if you just stayed in the persona of Mark Evans, otherwise you're not going to be the only one here in the need of help," her breath left her in that deep whooshing noise as well, somehow the day had already become long so early in the morning. "Now, let's start with your default once more."

Again they found themselves in the park. "All right, Mr. Evans, I need you to concentrate very hard on this one scene, though I think I'm a bit more prepared to pull us out if you start blinking again." The scene wavered and Amy laid her hand on her charge's back drew small circles to calm him and the park became solid once more. "Good work. Now, I want you to gently shift focus to a scene here from when you were small."

At first nothing happened, as Mark struggled with the effort of simply keeping this one scene from dissipating. Then the world melded again, as if they had suddenly looked at it in the reflection of a spoon, and when it returned to normal the season had changed to the oppressing heat of summer and there was a small boy with a garden snake. There wasn't an inch of fat on the child's body, and with his shirt discarded in the humidity Amy could count each individual rib. The snake lay the across the length of the boy's torso with it's head raised to look into the green eyes of its companion. They were hissing at each other.

"The champion of the light is a parselmouth?" Amy asked in a voice that implied a sly wink, "What would the _Prophet _say?" The joke was lost on Mark, however, who was hardly paying attention to jabs when the amount of concentration necessary to hold this scene caused beads of sweat to form on the fringe of his hairline. Amy noticed this a pulled him back out. They were on the couches again and he was panting heavily.

"And I thought you were in shape, Evans," she joked. Again he didn't rise to the barb and Amy's brow furrowed. She pulled the coffee table away and sat before him, looking into his green eyes, placing her hands on either side of them. "Just breathe, you got it, there you go."

Slowly he calmed down. "It's not funny," he intoned softly, "I—" he started and then seemingly lost the words necessary to continue. He swallowed and started again, "I can feel it, all the bad stuff, crushing down like a heavy weight trying to come in. It's like my mind is constantly under attack. It isn't _easy_." He closed his eyes heavily, and when they opened again they were dark, which wasn't something she missed this time.

"I'm sorry," she said with sincerity. "Does it make it more difficult to hold your appearance like that?"

"Sometimes," he admitted.

"You can let it drop. I won't flip on you."

"Well, now that we've established that," he said wryly, thinking back to their taxing encounters over the last few days. She smiled at his poor attempt at a joke. His wands were still on the table, one got re-sheathed and he took the other one and added some wards to the room, before putting it away as well. Then his disguise fell, slowly peeling away from his head to his feet.

Amy surveyed the man who was now in front of her; there was a definite aura of haunted-ness that was hidden when he was Evans. His complexion was lighter too, and he had shrunk a few good inches. His face was almost too lean and angular, with elfin cheekbones and a strong forehead casting shadows on the bottom half of his face. And despite the fact that his appearance now was definitely more _normal_ she could pick up traces of what would have him noticed at every wizarding location he frequented. There had been a picture of the boy in the paper, holding a Nimbus 2000, when he had made his house team prematurely; she had glanced at it about a week ago. The shock of hair was the same, though it had transformed from simply unkempt to an attractive bed head style that was obviously effortless now, though it had probably caused him considerable grief in his younger years. The green eyes had only changed in focus as if their gaze had gained a stronger purpose. And then, gently raised upon his forehead was a thin line that was lighter than the rest of his pale face; of course there was the scar. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"All right then, now that that's taken care of," she babbled slightly before sitting herself back on the edge of the coffee table, so that now there was nothing between them except a thin wall of air, "Same exercise again, focus on your default, 1, 2, and 3."

The world he thought up held better this time, whether it was because he had done away with the added strain of keeping up his guise or if it was because he had just done it a few times by now he wasn't sure. All he knew is that there were a few more details placed into the grains of the wood and the edges seemed to contort and peel threateningly a little less. Amy gave him a proud smile. "Okay, same drill. Show me what you've got."

This time the Harry that came out was older. Thirteen or fourteen, she guessed, but his oversized, puppy hands and dapple of spots across his nose and cheeks. Some pudgy kid with a few lackeys showed up on the scene and started tempting him. He whipped out his wand and said something back, threateningly; Amy couldn't make out the words exactly. The image was too much work to hold for Harry to pull it in clearly. The pig-kid cowered away from the tip of it, his friends baffled by his response and they all disappeared quickly. The scene set up to play again.

Amy's finger's intertwined with Harry's more firmly, just in case; his hands were warm and sweating a bit. "Good work, now take us back to your default." The image warped out and then snapped back in place like elastic to the original, empty park. He had the most violent shifts of any mind Amy had ever been in. She glanced at him briefly pulling them both back into reality to properly survey her young charge. His shirt was soaked with sweat, his hair as well, which was plastered down across his forehead, obscuring his famous scar. "Breathe with me." Slowly he calmed down.

"All right there, Evans. I think that's enough for today." Harry nodded and pulled back on his guise, which held for a few minutes and then slipped right off. He then bent over a puked on the floor before him; it was mostly just water, colored slightly orange with a few splotches of different consistency.

"Sorry," he said weakly and pulled out his wand to clean it off. Amy stopped him before he had a chance, thinking he was in no condition to perform any magic, even the basics of cleaning. She did the job for him.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" was her demand, he shook his head in reply, miserably holding his stomach. "When _was_ the last time you ate?" he shrugged his shoulders in response. Did he have dinner yesterday? Lunch even? Fuck, after this morning he could barely remember yesterday, let alone the very insignificant human things he may or may not have accomplished. His companion sighed and glanced at her watch; Sarah wouldn't be home for another few hours and he was in no condition to be left alone or taken out, considering he still looked like an overgrown savior of the wizarding populace. Fuck. "Take my hand."

Side-along aparation and the image of this dinning room were almost enough to make him retch again. Amy quickly handing him a bucket as he began to look green once more, "just sit down and the table and I'm going to cook you up something real quick so that I know that if I send you home you aren't going to die somewhere. That would be hard to explain, especially after yesterday."

In the other room a microwave began to whirl as Amy banged around in the cupboard. In a few minutes a beep rung out, causing Harry's head to give a heavy throb and Amy emerged from the kitchen a few moments later with two bowls of soup and a plate of toast for them to share. "Eat up and keep it down, Harry. They don't pay me enough to have you upchucking this stuff at my table, all right?"

He did manage to keep it down, and even managed to switch his appearance back to Evans securly, though he kept the bucket firmly pressed between his thighs just in case and kept quiet while he sipped through his first and second helpings of soup. He was on his third, with Amy already finished with her meal and bewitching the plates to wash themselves in the sink, when the door slammed open. It was a small apartment, so the view from the entrance was clearly visible from where Mark sat at the table. Sarah was early, and when she arrived home, dirty, exhausted and all around pissed off and glared instinctively at Mark across the flat all he could do was swallow awkwardly.


End file.
